Design optimization and characterization of high-gain GaInP/GaAs HBT distributed amplifiers for high-bit-rate telecommunication

The design methodology, processing technology, and characterization of high-gain GaInP/GaAs heterojunction-bipolar-transistor-based distributed amplifiers are described in this paper. Distributed amplifiers with different active cells and number of stages have been compared for high-gain (>12 dB) and high-bandwidth (>25 GHz) performance. Based on the results, a three-stage attenuation-compensated distributed amplifier with a flat gain (S/sub 21/) of 12.7 dB over a bandwidth of 27.5 GHz was successfully fabricated and tested. Eye-diagram tests at 10 Gb/s show very open eye characteristics with no signal skewing. The amplifier achieves a minimum noise figure of 4 dB at 3 GHz and a sensitivity of -25 dBm for 10-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero 2/sup 15/-1 pseudorandom bit sequence with a bit error rate of 10/sup -9/.