2.5 Gb/s DC coupled retimed optical transducer with a dynamic reference voltage comparator

A monolithic broad-band dc-coupled Silicon bipolar optical transducer has been designed to receive and retime uncoded data at rates up to 2.5 Gb/s. The transducer employs a modified feedback emitter coupled logic (FECL) loop to dynamically set reference voltages derived from the "1" and "0" level output signals of the single-ended pre-amplifier for balanced operation of the decision circuit. The pre-amplifier has a nominal sensitivity of -23.1 dBm at 1 GHz.