A 112 Gb/s Radiation-Hardened Mid-Board Optical Transceiver in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS for Intra-Satellite Links

We report the design of a 112 Gb/s radiation-hardened (RH) optical transceiver applicable to intra-satellite optical interconnects. The transceiver chipset comprises a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) driver and transimpedance amplifier (TIA) integrated circuits (ICs) with four channels per die, which are adapted for a flip-chip assembly into a mid-board optics (MBO) optical transceiver module. The ICs are designed in the IHP 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS process (SG13RH) leveraging proven robustness in radiation environments and high-speed performance featuring bipolar transistors (HBTs) with fT/fMAX values of up to 250/340 GHz. Besides hardening by technology, radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD) components are used, including enclosed layout transistors (ELTs) and digital logic cells. We report design features of the ICs and the module, and provide performance data from post-layout simulations. We present radiation evaluation data on analog devices and digital cells, which indicate that the transceiver ICs will reliably operate at typical total ionizing dose (TID) levels and single event latch-up thresholds found in geostationary satellites

Pulse modulation techniques for switched-mode transmitter

Nowadays more and more communication devices incorporate multiple transceivers operating in different frequency bands. To reduce form factor and power consumption of such devices, a fully digital, multi-standard, multiband transmitter is highly demanded. In modern communication systems, the peak-to-average ratio of the transmitted signals is often more than 10 dB. This means that the power amplifier has to operate in significant back-off from its compression point, where the classical amplifier architectures suffer from very low efficiency. The class-S power amplifier may provide a potential solution to such a transmitter because it incorporates an amplifier which is operating in the switch mode where 100% efficiency can be theoretically approached. A nonlinear switch mode power amplifier can be linearized if driven by a pulse encoder and followed by a bandpass filter. The efficiency and available power of a class-S power amplifier are highly dependent on the employed pulse encoding technique. Within the framework of this thesis, the main characteristics of pulse modulators and their limitations while driving different classes of switch-mode power amplifiers are discussed. The definitions of the pulse encoder parameters are given and the performance of several pulse encoder architectures was compared for the case when they are driven by a real communication signal. For class-S power amplifier demonstrators, at three different operating frequencies (450 MHz, 900 MHz and 2.1-2.2 GHz), the corresponding bandpass delta-sigma modulators (DSMs) have been developed. For the latter two cases, the switching speed of power transistors was not high enough and common DSM architectures were not applicable. For example, for the 2.1-2.2 GHz class-S demonstrator the maximum required sampling frequency of the DSM was limited to 5 GHz. Thus, a design procedure for a 5 GS/s 2.1-2.2 GHz center frequency DSM has been established. The developed bandpass DSM enabled the implementation of the complete class-S power amplifier at 2.1-2.2 GHz carrier frequencies. In the successive steps of the study, a new fully digital pulse encoder architecture has been developed. The results of comparison of this pulse encoding technique with the state-of-the-art have been presented. Finally, the performance of the proposed digital polar modulator was demonstrated by driving a real class-F power amplifier at 2.1 GH

HF-Modulator für Klasse-S-Verstärker - HMoS, Teilprojekt 2: Monolithische modulare Integration : Schlussbericht

[no abstract available

From RF to MM and THz silicon SOC technologies - RF2ThzSiSoC - Teilprojekt: Hochperformante photonische HF-Technologie : Abschlussbericht : Laufzeit des Vorhabens: 01.01.2012-31.12.2014 (mit genehmigter Verlängerung: 30.09.2015)

[no abstract available

A 112 Gb/s radiation-hard mid-board optical transceiver in 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS for intra-satellite links

We report the design of 112 Gb/s radiation-hard (RH) optical transceiver applicable to intra-satellite optical interconnects. The transceiver chipset comprises of VCSEL driver and transimpedance amplifier (TIA) ICs integrated with four channels per die, which are adapted for flip-chip assembly into a mid-board optics (MBO) optical transceiver module. The ICs are designed in the IHP 130nm SiGe BiCMOS process (SG13RH) leveraging proven robustness in radiation environments and high-speed performance featuring bipolar transistors (HBTs) with fT/ fMAX values of up to 250/340 GHz. Besides hardening-by-technology, radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD) components are used, including enclosed layout transistors (ELT) and digital logic cells. We report design features of the ICs and module and provide performance data from post-layout simulations. We present radiation evaluation data on the analogue devices and digital cells, which indicate that the transceiver ICs would operate under typical total ionizing dose (TID) levels and single event latch-up thresholds found in geostationary satellites