Low-Noise Speed-Optimized Large Area CMOS Avalanche Photodetector for Visible Light Communication

Mean-gain and excess-noise measurements are presented for a 350 × 350 μm 2 P+/N-well/P-sub and a 270 × 270 μm 2 N-well/P-sub avalanche photodetectors fabricated using 0.13-μm CMOS technology. The active area of the P+/N-well/P-sub device was divided into multiple subsections to decrease transit time and increase speed. For the P+/N-well structure, remarkably low excess-noise factors of 4.1 and 4 were measured at a mean gain of 16 corresponding to a k value of approximately 0.1, using a 542 (633) nm laser. For a variant N-well/P-sub structure, excess-noise factors of 6.5 and 6.2 were measured at a mean-gain of 16 corresponding to a k value of approximately 0.3. The proposed CMOS APDs with high gain, low noise, low avalanche breakdown voltage (below approximately 12 V) and low dark-currents (approximately nA) would be attractive for low-cost optical receivers in visible-light communication systems

A 300 GHz data communication receiver using plasma-wave FET detector in 65nm CMOS

International audienceThis paper presents a fully integrated receiver for 300 GHz communication using plasma-wave field effect transistor (FET) detector in digital 65 nm CMOS technology (fT/fmax=170/230 GHz). Besides the detector, the receiver chain includes an on chip patch antenna and a broadband base-band amplifier. The low modulation frequency charac-terization shows a responsivity around 3 V/W at 290 GHz with a bandwidth around 20 GHz (280 ~ 300 GHz). Using a PRBS signal source, the highest measured detectable data rate is 1 Gb/s at 300 GHz carrier frequency, which shows the capability of data communication using the single FET plasma wave detector. The measured data rate is limited by the output power generated from the modulated signal source as well as the noise collected over the bandwidth of the amplifier. To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first demonstration of successful communication in CMOS with integrated antenna, single plasma wave FET detector and broadband amplifier in sub-millimeter/terahertz wave frequencies