Regenerator chip set for high-speed digital transmission

The authors have developed a custom two-chip set containing all of the active circuitry necessary for regeneration of digital electrical signals in a 300-Mb/s fiber-optic transmission system. The set includes an automatic gain control (AGC) amplifier with gain-bandwidth product in excess of 100 GHz, and a decision circuit with excellent dynamic sensitivity, measured up to 650 Mb/s. The chips are fabricated using a 2.5-μm fully complementary bipolar process.