Recent VCSEL drivers for high data rate parallel transceivers are designed to DC couple to the VCSELs. These drivers normally include no back termination to save power. Due to mechanical restrictions, the wire bond between the driver's output and the laser is usually quite long. Such laser drivers in a transceiver can cause excessive optical eye distortions (overshoot, pattern dependent jitter, etc.) to a VCSEL which performs well when driven by a 50Ohm source. Therefore more careful design optimizations (of the VCSEL's intrinsic laser behavior and its parasitic elements) are needed for such applications. In most cases, this is the only way to achieve good transceiver performance for a given VCSEL driver IC. In this talk, we present Emcore's recent effort to optimize the 850nm 10G VCSEL array for the real world laser drivers used in parallel transceivers and active cables.

Date Published: 5 February 2010
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7615, Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers XIV, 761508 (5 February 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.845393

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7615:
Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers XIV
James K. Guenter; Kent D. Choquette, Editor(s)