Abstract

Opto-electronic integrated circuits (OEIC's) have attracted a good deal of attention recently because they promise to have high performance, more functionality, better reliability, simpler packaging, and lower cost than discrete devices used today. Especially at speeds higher than 5 Gbit/s, monolithic integration of the semiconductor laser with the associated transistor driver becomes desirable, if not necessary, in order to reduce the parasitics due to bonding wires. In this talk, we describe the design considerations, operating chartacteristics, and performance of InP-based transmitter OEICs with very high speeds up to 10 Gbit/s. Two basic material technologies for the laser driver electronics have been investigated, namely, (1) GaAs-on-InP lattice mismatched system for GaAs MESFETs and (2) lattice-matched InGaAs/In-AlAs for MODFETs. In the former case, because of the relatively mature GaAs MESFET permormance InGaAs/InAlAs MODFET has been monolithically integrated with a λ/4-shifted DFB laser. A 3-dB modulation bandwidth of 19 GHz for the laser was measured. The transmitter OEIC can be operated at speeds as high as 10 Gbit/s. A tansmission experiment using this transmitter OEIC and a hybrid PIN-HEMT receiver achieved a distance of 29 km with a receiver sensitivity of -20.5 dBm at 5 Gbit/s. Issues concerning material and processing compatibility, performance trade-offs, and power consumption will be addressed.

© 1990 Optical Society of America