Single-Photon Avalanche Photodiode Based Fiber Optic Receiver for Up to 200 Mb/s

The first fully integrated receiver based on single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) for data rates of up to 200 Mb/s is reported
.
An array of four SPADs in combination with quenching circuits and a short dead time of 3.5 ns is fabricated in a 0.35 μm CMOS process. The responses of the SPADs are combined using an integrated digital latch-type processing circuit to create a single output data stream. In addition, the output of each quenching circuit is recorded and the bit error rates are extracted by postprocessing in MATLAB. Using a 635-nm single-mode laser source, the bit error rate at different optical power is measured at 50, 100, 150, and 200 Mb/s. The integrated digital circuit achieved the best sensitivity at –46.3 dBm (BER = 2·10
^–3
) for 100 Mb/s. Using the MATLAB postprocessing, a sensitivity of –43.8 dBm at 200 Mb/s (BER = 6.5·10
^–3
) is reached.