12.2 A 4-Channel 200Gb/s PAM-4 BiCMOS Transceiver with Silicon Photonics Front-Ends for Gigabit Ethernet Applications
E. Sentieri, Tino Copani, Andrea Paganini, Matteo Traldi, Angelo Palladino, Antonio Santipo, Lorenzo Gerosa, Matteo Repossi, Gianluca Catrini, Marta Arias Campo, Francesco Radice, Andrea Diodato, R. Pelleriti, Daniele Baldi, Laura Tarantini, Luca Maggi, Gianluca Radaelli, Stefano Cervini, Francesco Clerici, Angelo Moroni
Abstract
The ever-increasing demand for high network capacities and escalating data centers have pushed the boundary from discrete transceivers toward the integration of monolithic electro-optical ICs [1]. Furthermore, complex modulation schemes such as PAM-4 have been introduced to improve the trade-off between circuit bandwidth, power consumption, data-rate and optical-link range compared to NRZ signaling. Therefore, the cost advantage of a fully integrated silicon solution will eventually push classical discrete implementations toward obsolescence.