A CMOS 0.13 mu m, 5-Gb/s laser driver for high energy physics applications

The GigaBit Laser Driver (GBLD) is a radiation tolerant ASIC designed to drive both edge emitting lasers and VCSELs at data rates up to 5 Gb/s. It is part of the GigaBit Transceiver (GBT) and Versatile Link projects, which are designing a bi-directional optical data transmission system capable of operating in the radiation environment of a typical HEP experiment. The GBLD can provide laser diode modulation currents up to 24 mA and laser bias currents up to 43 mA. Pre- and de-emphasis functions are implemented to compensate for high external capacitive loads and asymmetric laser response. The chip, designed in a 0.13 <formula formulatype='inline'> <tex Notation='TeX'>$\mu$</tex></formula>m CMOS technology, is powered by a single 2.5 V power supply and can be programmed via an <formula formulatype='inline'><tex Notation='TeX'>$I2C$</tex> </formula> interface.