Design Considerations and Performance Requirements for High Speed Driver Amplifiers

The requirements for high speed driver amplifiers present a tough challenge to circuit designers. The two key requirements are a very broad instantaneous bandwidth and very good phase linearity. Allied to the broad band requirement is the need for constant gain and output power with frequency. Achieving all of these simultaneously requires careful consideration and understanding of the issues involved. In this technical note we take a general look at the background to these requirements and circuit techniques used by engineers at LA Techniques to achieve them for data rates beyond 10 Gb/s.