A novel optoelectronic serial-to-parallel converter for 25-Gbps burst-mode optical packets

A new optoelectronic serial-to-parallel converter (SPC) has been developed to interface 25-Gbps asynchronous optical packets to CMOS circuitry. Other than all previous optoelectronic SPCs that are limited to single-shot operation and hence that can only be used for packet label processing, the SPC presented here can operate repeatedly with a period of as low as 640 ps to perform 1:16 conversion for an entire burst-mode 25-Gbps optical packet. The new SPC adopts a shared-trigger configuration and hence a single device can either convert a single packet or dual packets simultaneously. In this paper, the design and operation of the new SPC is explained after reviewing the fundamentals of performing bit-by-bit serial-to-parallel conversion by using HEMT-arrays and MSM-PDs. The response of the fabricated SPC device is presented and explained, together with the experimental work done to demonstrate 1:16 dual packet conversion at 25 Gbps.