SNR characteristics of 850-nm OEIC receiver with a silicon avalanche photodetector.

We investigate signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) characteristics of an 850-nm optoelectronic integrated circuit (OEIC) receiver fabricated with standard 0.25-mu m SiGe bipolar complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (BiCMOS) technology. The OEIC receiver is composed of a Si avalanche photodetector (APD) and BiCMOS analog circuits including a transimpedance amplifier with DC-balanced buffer, a tunable equalizer, a limiting amplifier, and an output buffer with 50-Omega loads. We measure APD SNR characteristics dependence on the reverse bias voltage as well as BiCMOS circuit noise characteristics. From these, we determine the SNR characteristics of the entire OEIC receiver, and finally, the results are verified with bit-error rate measurement. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America