Transmitter predistortion for simultaneous improvements in bit rate, sensitivity, jitter, and power efficiency in 20 Gb/s CMOS-Driven VCSEL links

The effect of applying feed-forward equalization (FFE) on the transmitter side is studied for three different full optical links. In contrast to all previous works, the FFE settings are optimized for a complete link, rather than just the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser output. The approach results in dramatic improvements in total link performance: > 6 dB in sensitivity, 3X in timing margin, and 2X in power efficiency at 15 Gb/s, and a record 5.7 pJ/bit at 20 Gb/s. © 2006 IEEE.