Optical receiver systems for high speed parallel digital data links

This paper presents an analysis as well as experimental results on developing receiver arrays for parallel digital datalinks for 10-100 m in the Gb/s range. Interchannel crosstalk can be a dominant limiting factor on the bit-error-rate in such parallel arrays. We present a novel analysis of the physical origins of crosstalk arising from the power-supply distribution, as well as an efficient circuit simulation technique for the effect of crosstalk on digital signal transmission in multichannel systems. It is shown that while differential receivers exhibit a far lower crosstalk than single-ended ones, it is possible to obtain low crosstalk values in the latter case by means of suitable power supply decoupling. Experimental results in the form of two low crosstalk multichannel receiver arrays are presented to corroborate the theory