V PON receiver IC with a high-speed ATC circuit

We fabricated a +3.3 V single-supply burst-mode receiver IC for a passive optical network (PON) system with Si-bipolar technology. This IC consists of a high-speed ATC (Automatic Threshold Control) circuit and limiter amplifier. To achieve both high sensitivity and fast response of the ATC, we designed a new peak detector circuit that includes a sensitive small-signal detector and a high-speed large-signal detector. Measured results show that the ATC circuit responds within 1 mV error at 156 Mb/s. The burst-mode receiver demonstrates high-speed response at the beginning of cells, and a high loud/soft ratio of more than 27 dB. We obtained a minimum sensitivity about -25 dBm at 622 Mb/s. The sensitivity at 622 Mb/s can be improved to -29 dBm by optimizing the bandwidth of the limiter amplifier