Abstract: A power-configurable high performance preamplifier was implemented in standard 180-nm CMOS technology for 12 × 10 Gb/s high-density ultra-high speed parallel optical communication system. With critical limitations on power consumption, area and fabrication cost, the preamplifier achieves high performance, e.g. high bandwidth, high trans-impedance gain, low noise and high stability. A novel feed-forward common gate (FCG) stage is adopted to alleviate contradictions on trans-impedance gain and bandwidth by using a low headroom consuming approach to isolate a large input capacitance and using complex pole peaking techniques to substitute inductors to achieve bandwidth extension. A multi-supply power-configurable scheme was employed to avoid wasteful power caused by a pessimistic estimation of process-voltage-temperature (PVT) variation. Two representative samples provide a trans-impedance gain of 53.9 dBΩ, a 3-dB bandwidth of 6.8 GHz, a power dissipation of 6.26 mW without power-configuration and a trans-impedance gain of 52.1 dBΩ, a 3-dB bandwidth of 8.1 GHz, a power dissipation of 6.35 mW with power-configuration, respectively. The measured average input-referred noise-current spectral density is no more than 28 pA/Hz. The chip area is only 0.08 ? 0.08 mm².

Key words: preamplifier, parallel optical receiver, low power, low cost, feed-forward common-gate (simplified FCG) stage, power-configurable