Light Channel 5 Gb/s Optoelectronic TDM (Time Division Multiplexing)

An 81, 5 Gbs, time division multiplexer has been implemented using optoelectronic or metal-semiconductor-metal switches for sampling. The device was fabricated on InP and the switches activated via optical fiber delay lines by pulses from a GaA1As laser diode array. This device concept is applicable to chip and to board level computing multiplexing. Time division multiplexing TDM , serializing parallel data for high speed transmission, is an important element in most concepts and implementations in computer networking as well as other areas of communications. An optoelectronic TDM OE-TDM approach1 is advantageous in speed, power, and signal-control isolation. It was conceived initially to offer serial transmission off VLSI chips and recently has shown promise as a stand alone multiplexing technique. We report an improved multiplexer in InP giving an 81 multiplex ratio, a 26 dB signal-to-noise ratio, and a 5 Gbs serial data rate while using a realistic parallel data level of 2 volts instead of the earlier 15 V1.