500 Mb/s, 20-channel CMOS laser diode array driver for a parallel optical bus

Abstract

A 20-channel, 500 Mb/s/channel CMOS laser diode (LD) driver is used to drive a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) array in a parallel optical bus transmitter. It uses a fully-differential self-biased signal receiver for its 500 Mb/s low voltage differential signal (LVDS) input common mode range. Total data throughput is 10 Gb/s. It uses a standard 3.3 V power supply with 1.6 W of power dissipation, with user features such as on-chip data scrambling and built-in link self-test. The chip consists of 20, 500 Mb/s data channels and a full and half speed clock interface and supports both synchronous and asynchronous modes of operation. The chip is fabricated using 0.8 μm CMOS. Its characteristics regarding packaging and circuit design are discussed.