Optoelectronic system integration using InP-based HBTS for lightwave communications

This article reviews the field of optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) in which InP-based heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) were integrated monolithically with lasers and photodetectors for applications in lightwave communication systems. The high performance capability of the InP-HBTs have enabled demonstration of very high speed transmitters and receivers in particular. A wide range of operating speeds from 100 Mb s(-1) to 20 Gb s(-1). were achieved for single channel monolithic photoreceivers. The power of OEICs was proven in multichannel array receivers with aggregate speeds of 20 Gb s(-1). Interchannel crosstalk is a primary concern in monolithic array receiver chips and laboratory experiments have shown that the crosstalk penalty can be made small by careful design and package considerations. Finally, integration of passive waveguides with p-i-n photodetectors and HBT-based preamplifiers to realize a wavelength demultiplexed receiver is described. The challenge in such an integration is to make the device polarization insensitive, low loss and small in size. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.