A study on Low-Power Fully Differential Distributed Laser Driver Circuits with Gate-Line-Division Technique for Optical Access Networks

With the increasing demand for network services, energy efficiency in Passive Optical Networks (PONs) has become a critical concern. This study addresses how to decrease power consumption of the Optical Network Unit (ONU) by optimizing its laser diode driver (LDD) circuit. A CMOS-based distributed amplifier (DA) is proposed, incorporating low output matching impedance, choke inductors, and gate-line-division techniques. We numerically demonstrate a power consumption of 300.7 mW, representing a 68% reduction compared to conventional designs, while maintaining a 43-mA peak-to-peak differential current output and a −3-dB bandwidth of 2.2 GHz. These findings demonstrate the potential of CMOS-based DAs for developing energy-efficient LDDs in modern access networks.