InP HBT Production Technology for 100 Gbps Lightwave Communications

InP HBT technology appears to offer the high speed, low power and basic producibility necessary to support a high-speed digital IC technology. Maximum clock speed of 53 GHz has been demonstrated at 40 mW per flip-flop (FF) as compared to well over 200 mW/FF for SiGe at slower speeds. At a power dissipation of less than 9 mW/FF, toggle rate is still a respectable 35 GHz. Producibility and high speed at reasonable power levels are what set InP HBT apart from other high-performance technologies. For reasonable levels of total power dissipation onchip, InP actually supports the highest levels of integration of ultra-high speed components: 250 equivalent gates for 5W power dissipation at 50 GHz. In this paper, speed and power of InP HBT are compared to other digital IC technology options such as SiGe HBT and GaAs/AlGaAs HBT, it is shown that InP HBT are ideal for MSI level communications circuits such as multiplexers and demultiplexers. Producibility issues and process latitude are discussed in detail. Yields of circuits demonstrated in this work indicate that levels of integration consistent with 500-1000 transistors are currently realizable.