INP DHBT TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN METHODOLOGY FOR HIGH-BIT-RATE OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS CIRCUITS

High-bit-rate optical communication links require high performance cir cuits. Electrical time division multiplex (ETDM) single channel bit-ra te of 40 Gb/s is at hand, due to recent progress in both technology an d design methodology. Alternatively to binary, a multilevel modulation format can be envisaged for ETDM transmission. An InP double heteroju nction bipolar transistor technology is presented in this paper. The m ethodology used and tools developed with optical communications in min d are also discussed. Fabricated circuits are reported: 40 Gb/s multip lexer and demultiplexer, a 20 Gb/s driver, a 30 Gb/s selector-driver, a 22 Gb/s decision circuit, and a decision-decoding circuit for multil evel transmissions.