Transimpedance amplifiers for optical fiber systems based on common-base transistors

In this paper, the performances of common-emitter and common-base transimpedance amplifiers are compared. Frequency response, noise level, power consumption, and silicon area are the main parameters studied. It is shown that transimpedance preamplifiers based on common-base transistors present less peaking effects because the poles of the transimpedance gain are real in most practical cases. The noise figures for both common-emitter and common-base structures are similar. For the results an 8 GHz BiCMOS technology is employed.