A 10 GHz bandwidth balanced photoreceiver with 41 V/W optical conversion gain

A 10 GHz bandwidth photoreceiver is demonstrated. The photoreceiver consists of two photodiodes (PD) in a balanced configuration to generate a single-ended input to the transimpedance amplifier (TIA). The PDs achieves a responsivity of 0.48 A/W, and a 15 GHz bandwidth while driving a 50 Omega load under the designed biasing. The regulated cascode TIA is implemented in a 130 nm RF CMOS process. The TIA achieves a transimpedance gain of 39 dB Omega. The complete photoreceiver achieves a conversion gain of 41 V/W across a 10 GHz bandwidth with the TIA consuming 56 mW from a 2 V supply, and the PDs drawing 1.2 mA from +/-5 V supplies. High sensitivity is achieved due to a low noise equivalent power (NEP) of 86 pW/v root Hz.