High Speed InP HBT Driver Ie For Laser Modulation

High-speed IC for time-division multiplexing (TDM) optical transmission systems have been designed and fabricated by using InP heterojunction-bipolar-transistor (HBT) technology. The driver IC was developed for driving external modulators, featuring differential outputs and the operation speed up to 10 Gbps with an output voltage swing of 1.3 Vpp at each output which was the limit of the measurement. Because -3 dB frequency was 20GHz, this circuit will be operated up to 20Gbps. 1.3Vpp differential output was achieved by switching 50 mA into a 50 $\Omega$ load. The power dissipation of the driver IC was 1W using a single supply voltage of -3.5Y. Input md output return loss of the IC were better than 10 dB and 15 dB, respectively, from DC to 20GHz. The chip size of fabricated IC was $1.7{\Box}1.2 mm^{2}$.