A 71-Gb/s NRZ modulated 850-nm VCSEL-based optical link

We report error free ( $\textrm {BER}<10^{-12}$ ) operation of a directly non-return-to-zero modulated 850-nm vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) link operating to 71 Gb/s. This is the highest error free modulation rate for a directly modulated laser of any type. The optical link consists of a 130-nm BiCMOS driver IC with two-tap feed-forward equalization, a wide bandwidth 850-nm VCSEL, a surface illuminated GaAs PIN photodiode, and a 130-nm BiCMOS receiver IC.