HBT devices and circuits for signal and data processing

Abstract Production and laboratory AlGaAs/GaAs HBT processes were developed, enabling implementation of high-precision and high-speed circuits to meet the ever increasing demands on information bandwidths. Under normal bias conditions, the production HBT process shows transistor f t and f max above 50 GHz, while the laboratory process reveals f t of 60 GHz and f max of 110 GHz. With these two HBT processes, numerous high-speed and high-precision circuits for signal and data processing were implemented. In particular, we have designed and fabricated a 8-bit, 2 GS s −1 ADC and a 6-bit, 4 GS s −1 ADC for instrumentation and digital receiver applications; a 40 GBit s −1 4:1 multiplexer and an 8-channel, 2.5 GBit s −1 laser driver array for optical communication transmitters; a 50 dBΩ, 25 GHz preamplifier, a DC-26 GHz 10–16 dB variable gain amplifer, a 30 GBit s −1 data/clock regeneration circuit, two 40 GBit s −1 nonlinear (differentiate/rectify and delay/multiply) clock regeneration circuits, and a 40 GBit s −1 phase detector circuit for optical communication receivers.