Gb/s fiber optic link adapter chip set

A pair of chips containing all of the required high-speed analog and digital circuitry for a fiber-optic date link with byte-wide interfaces, has been designed, fabricated, and tested at 1 Gb/s using a 1- mu m E/D (enhancement/depletion) MESFET technology. The transmitter chip takes a byte-wide parallel data stream and converts it to a serial signal suitable for driving a laser diode. The receiver chip takes an optical input and provides a retimed parallel data output synchronized with byte boundaries. It is concluded that such chips will find applications in computer data communication where packaging density and cost are important issues.<<ETX>>