Integrated Circuits for Broadband Communications

Prof. Frank Ellinger

Institute for Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering and Electronics 

Chair for Circuit Design and Network Theory

Course assistants:
Marco Gunia

In the winter semester 2026/2027 the lectures and tutorials will be held in the TU Dresden campus. At the same time all lecture and tutorial video files, slides, chat forums, etc. are available through the Bildungsportal Sachsen OPAL portal. The course site has been enabled for registered users. Registration is recommended for easier access to updates. (State 01.09.2026)

You can download the Calendar of the lecture from here.

The lecture hours and tutorial hours are offered in presence and via pre-recorded audio-visual files. 

About this lecture

Goal of this lecture

Design of fast integrated circuits for broadband optical communications. To practice important English terminology the lecture is given in English. The answering of the exam questions can be made in English or in German. Lectures go along with theory tutorials and hands-on lab tutorials.

Content

• Introduction (applications, circuit architectures of optical systems, basics, markets, specs, random data)
• Brief repetition of optical devices (photodiodes, lasers, modulators, fibers)
• Interfaces to optical devices and circuit specifications
• Broadband amplifiers and bandwidth optimization techniques
• Transimpedance amplifier
• Automatic gain control circuit
• Limiting amplifier
• Output buffer
• Laser and modulator driver
• Voltage-controlled oscillators incl. multiphase generation
• Phased looked loop
• Integer-N and fractional-N synthesizer for periodic signals
• Clock data recovery for non-periodic signals (edge detection, rectification, early-late, frequency detection)
• Frequency divider (integer and multi-modulus)
• Signal multiplexer and demultiplexer

• Chip design procedure

• State-of-the-art and outlook

Recommended book

B. Razavi, Design of Integrated Circuits for Optical Communications, McGraw-Hill, 2003