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 2025/2026 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 01.09.2025)
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. For the visit of the presence events please comply with the Covid-19 safety rules and guidelines of TU Dresden and the State of Saxony.
About this lecture
| Field of study: microelectronics and information technology |
| Semester, Type: 7th Semester, elective |
| Time schedule (L/T/P): 3/1/2 |
| Field of study: microelectronics and information technology (Nanoelectronic Systems) |
| Semester, Type: 3rd semester, elective |
| Time schedule (L/T/P): 3/1/2 |
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