A 40-Gb/s NRZ Inductorless Transimpedance Amplifier in a 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS Technology

Abstract

In this study, an inductorless broadband transimpedance amplifier (TIA) is implemented using TSMC 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The regulated cascade circuit is used for the input stage of the TIA. The core amplifier is a fully differential amplifier paralleling with a differentiator that is capable of enhancing the bandwidth of the TIA. The TIA has a differential transimpedance gain of 39.4 dBΩ, a bandwidth of 32.9 GHz, and an average input-referred current noise density of 37 pA/√Hz. The TIA has a power consumption of 77 mW with a supply voltage of 3.3 V, and the chip area is 0.45 mm2 including pads. In the chip testing, the 25- and 40-Gb/s non-return-to-zero eye diagrams are measured and sufficiently clear.