Monolithically Integrated Pin/Fet Receiver Technology: A Review

The combination of a low capacitance pin photodetector-low noise GaAs FET (pin/FET) pre-amplifier has been shown to provide excellent receiver sensitivity for high bit rate long-wavelength lightwave systems. For some time it has been recognized that monolithic integration of these optical and electronic components on a single semiconductor chip offers the potential of improved performance at lower cost. Reduction in the cost of such components is expected to have significant impact on the introduction of lightwave systems into the local loop and of optical interconnections in high speed switching systems. Efforts at monolithic integration of receiver components to achieve competitive sensitivity have met with only modest success to date. In this paper we review the status of this work.