Low-Power 56Gb/s NRZ Microring Modulator Driver in 28nm FDSOI CMOS

High speed optical interconnects require low-power compact electro-optical transmit modules comprising driver circuits and optical modulators. This letter presents a low power 56 Gb/s non-return-to-zero CMOS inverter-based driver in 28 nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator CMOS driving a 46 GHz silicon photonic microring modulator. The driver delivers 1 Vpp to the microring modulator from a 75 mVpp input while only consuming 40 mW (710 fJ/bit at 56 Gb/s). The realized transmitter shows 4 dB extinction ratio when running of a 1 V supply voltage. Transmission experiments up to 2 km of single mode fiber show a bit-error-ratio less than 1 · 10
^-9
at 56 Gb/s.