An MQW electro-absorption optical modulator integrated with low-loss input and output waveguides is proposed to achieve larger modulation bandwidth with a shorter modulation region, keeping the total device length large enough for easy fabrication and packaging. A fabricated 1-mm-long modulator with a modulation-region length of 50 mum shows a low insertion loss (7 dB), low driving voltage (V10 dB = 2.6 V), and large modulation bandwidth (f3 dB = 40 GHz) extrapolated from measurements up to 20 GHz. This modulator is suitable for application to ultra-high-speed fiber transmission systems.