A monolithic 4 × 4 TIA, crosspoint switch and laser driver IC with very high programming speed

A 4×4 optoelectronic crosspoint switch, designed for short-haul communication networks, with less than 1 ns programming time per channel is presented. The IC implements TIAs, switch core and laser drivers using a 0.8 µm SiGe HBT BiCMOS technology that is a commercially available and mature fabrication technology. The switch has a nonblocking architecture with broadcasting capability and asynchronous data paths. The simulation and experimental results of the chip, which employs the most recently proposed ideas for single-ended input to differential output conversion [1] and high-isolation multiplexing [2], are also presented.