Skew Reduction for Synchronous OE-VLSI Receiver Applications

Abstract

A dc photocurrent rejection technique for optically differential receivers is proposed to reduce the sensitivity of receiver latency to variations in average input photocurrent. This is particularly attractive in optoelectronic very large scale integration applications, where array-scale nonuniformity is significant. Using optically enabled ring oscillator experiments, we demonstrate that the technique is capable of removing between 50%-75% of the skew in large synchronously operated arrays of common-gate amplifier- and transimpedance amplifier-based optical receivers.