A 25Gb/s APD-based burst-mode optical receiver with 2.24ns reconfiguration time in 28nm CMOS

This paper describes an avalanche photodetector (APD) based burst-mode optical receiver in 28nm CMOS with 1-tap feed forward equalization (FFE) and 2-tap decision feedback equalization (DFE) implemented in current-integrating fashion to improve the sensitivity. Integrating DC comparator and integrating amplitude comparator are proposed to replace the conventional RC low-pass filters and peak detectors, respectively, to reduce the reconfiguration time for burst-mode operation. The receiver achieves -16dBm sensitivity, 2.24ns reconfiguration time with 5dB dynamic range, and 1.37 pJ/bit energy efficiency at 25Gb/s.