MMIC Adaptive Transversal Preamplifier for High Speed Lightwave Systems

A. P. Freundorfer, D. H. Choi and Y. Jamani'"

Departmentof Electricaland ComputerEngineering
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, CANADA K7L-3N6
Canadian Microelectronics Corporation
210A Camithers Hall

Kingston, Ontario
Canada K7L3N6

INTRODUCTION

Equalizers in lightwave systems have been used in the transmitter and receiver to compensate for
linear or nonlinear distortion. Precompensation equalizers can be implemented at the transmitter to shape
the transmitted signal so that it is received with minimal distortion [1]. To compensate for distortion in
the receiver, an equalizer in the form of a tapped delay line filter can be used between the preamplifier
and threshold detector to tailor the pulse shape at the input of the decision circuitry. Recently,
experiments have shown that an lldB improvement could be obtained in a 10 Gb/s long haul system
using tap delay line filters [2].
Two circuits have been reported based on the MMIC active transversal filter concept using GaAs
MESFET technology; they exhibited band pass characteristics [3][4], which are not generally used in
lightwave systems. Transversal filters that have been specifically designed for lightwave systems have

been rqport^ [5][6] but suffer from limited band shape control. Afive-tap equalizer MMIC with cascode

gain block [7] was designed for adaptive control and demonstrated with measured results. We extend the
principle of [7] and present here a transversal preamplifier that is capable of preamplification, AGC and
phase shift control on a single chip.
THEORY

The wide bandwidth of the distributed amplifier (DA) structure makes it an attractive component
for use in high-speed lightwave systems [8]. As a distributed preamplifier, the noise and gain
characteristics are often superior to those of more traditional methods of preamplification [8]. Using the
same structure we can construct a transversal preamplifier as shown in Fig. 1. It differs from the
distributed preamplifier in that the output is tak^ at the opposite end of the drain line. Gain and pulse
shape control is achieved by individually controlling the transconductance gains (tap weights) of the gain
blocks. From input to output, the signal has to travel to and from the gain blocks along the distributed
gate and drain lines, and for each gain block the delay to the output is different. It is easy to show, by
supeiposition of the output voltages for a given input voltage, that thefrequency response is thesameas a
transversal tap delay line filter [5]-[7].
RESULTS

A fractionally spaced 9-tap transversal preamplifier MMIC with cascode gain block was
designed using HSPICE and was constructed in a 0.8 pm self-aligned gate process at Nortel. The Nortel

MESFET had the following process parameters: Vp = -1.2 V, Idss'^

A/mm, ft=20 GHz. The delay

difference, between gain blocks, of the gate and drain linewere made to be identical and given by Xg=Td=
25 ps which gives a total delay v= Xg+Xd= 50 ps. The cutofffrequency for the distributed preamplifier of

fc= 25.5 GHz. The measured frequency response of the transversal preamplifier chip is shown in Fig. 2.
Changing the applied voltage to the common-gate transistor of the cascode by adjusting Von between
2.5V controls each tap weight. Simulated AGC and group delay capabilities are shown in Fig. 3 and 4. It
can be seen that the above cascode transversal filter cannot only change the bandwidth [7] of the circuit

but is also capable of AGC and phase shifting. The gain control comes from the gain block whereas the
phase shift control comes from the distributed structure in conjunction with the gain control of the gain
block.

Fig. 5 shows the theoretical noise performance of the distributed and transversal preamplifier. It
can be seen that the noise performance of the transversal preamplifier is not as good as that of the
distributed preamplifier. This is a result of the fact that tiie dominant noise source is the gate line
termination Zng, as shown in Fig. 6.
CONCLUSION

A fractionally spaced preamplifier using cascode MESFET's and a distributed structure for pulse
shaping has been designed for use in high speed lightwave systems. The capability of the technique is
demonstrated with a MMIC implementation using Nortel's 0.8 |im GaAs MESFET technology.
Frequencyresponse measurements demonstrate that the bandwidthcan be controlledup to 5 GHz.
This could be integrated with a p-i-n photodetector to obtain a multifunction chip which is
capable of AGC phase shifting and preamplification.
SUPPORT

Financialsupport for this project was received fromNatural Science and Engineering Research
Council (NSERC) and Communications and Information Technology Ontario (CnO).
REFERENCES

1. T.L. Koch, RC. Alfemess, '^Dispersion Compensationby Active Predistorted Signal Synthesis, " J. Lightwave
TechnoLy vol. 3, Aug. 1985, pp. 800-805.

2. D. Schlump, B. Wedding and R Bulow, "ElectronicEqualization of PMD and Chromatic Dispersion induced
Distortion after 100km standard Fibre at 10 Gb/s," ECC)C*98, Sept. 1998, Madrid Spain, pp. 535-536.
3. C. Rauscher, "Microwave Active Filters Based on Transversal and Recursive Principles," IEEE Trans.
Micro\vave Theory Tech.y vol. MTT-33, no.l2, Dec. 1985, pp. 1350-1360.
4. M.J. Schindler, Y. Tajima, "A Novel MMIC Active Filter with Lumped and Transvffsal Elements," IEEE
Trans. Microwave Theory Tech.y vol. MTT-37, Dec. 1989, no. 12, pp. 2148-2153.

5. A. Boijack, P.P. Monteiro,J.J. O'Reilly and 1.Darwazdi, "High-speed goieralized distributed-amplifier-based

transvao-sal filter topologyfor optical communication systems",IEEE Trans. Microwave Theoryand Tech.y
vol. 45, no. 8, Aug. 1997, pp. 1453-1457.

6. P. Monteiro, A. Boijak, F. da Rocha, J. O'Reillyand I. Darwazdi, "10 Gbit/s Pulse Shaping DistributedBased
Transversal Filter Front-End for Optical SolitonReceiva-s", IEEE Microwave and GuidedWave L^ers, Vol.
8, No. 1, Jan. 1998, pp. 4-6.

7. Y. Jamani and A.P. Fr^mdorfer, "An active transversal filter MMIC for very high speed lightwave systems,"
IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett.y vol. 9, no. 6, June 1997, pp. 836-838.

8. A.P. Fromdorfer and T.L. Nguyen, "Noise in Distribute MESFET Preamplifier," IEEE Journal ofSolid-State
Circuits, Vol. 31, No. 8, Aug. 1996, pp. 1100-1111.

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Fig. lb) - Gain Block

Fig 1 a) - Distributed Transversal Preamplifier

5. 300

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Fig. 2 - Measured S21 and s22 of the Transversal Freamp Chip (with all tap weigts full on).

Gain Block 5 ON only

Gain Block 4 ON only

Gain Block 3 ON only

Gain Block 2 ON only

Gab) Block 10N only

10

Frequency [GHz]

Fig. 3 -AGC function with all taps being set to

Vgain.

10

Frequency [GHz]

Fig. 4 - Group delay versus frequency with each

tap set being individually set.

Distributed PreamptifierTransimpedance Gain

Transversal PreamplifierTransimpedpric^ain
\

talNoise ofTreinsve;^! Preamplifier

TotalNoiseof Distribpted Preamplifier

10

12

Frequency(GHz)

Comparison between Noise Performance of a Distributed Preamp and Transversal Preamp.

gate termination

drain terminatior

--nFET

10

12

14

16

18

20

Frequency (GHz)

Comparison between Noise Performance of a Distributed Preamp and Transversal Preamp.