A low-power 32Gbit/s differential MZM driver with an active CTLE for optical modules

This article presents the chip design and development of a wide-band Mach-Zehnder Modulator (MZM) driver with high differential output swing and low power consumption for next generation optical communication. The integrated MZM driver consists of an input buffer, a preamplifier and an output buffer with high output amplitude, in order to meet the speed and output swing requirements. Variable capacitors are used in the driver together with a pair of shunt-peaking inductors, improving the circuit bandwidth and high speed signal performance. In order to validate this work, the MZM driver has been evaluated in both frequency and time domain. Process parasitic parameters and the pad capacitors have been taken into account, which become crucial especially for high speed application. It has been demonstrated to achieve a sufficient bandwidth for the signal data rate up to $32 \mathrm{Gbit} / \mathrm{s}$.