A 100-GS/s Four-to-One Analog Time Interleaver in 55-nm SiGe BiCMOS

We demonstrate a four-to-one 100-GS/s time interleaver realized in a 55-nm BiCMOS technology. The interleaver comprises two stages of two-to-one sub-interleavers. Each sub-interleaver is implemented using a return-to-zero generation and summing architecture. This sub-interleaver architecture ensures lower clock feedthrough and contains an inherent feed-forward equalizer. Effective number of bits (ENOB) measurements have been performed revealing the interleaver's ENOB of 4.9 at 3 GHz. In addition, the transfer function is measured to show the capabilities of the inherent feed-forward equalizer of the sub-interleavers. The measured analog output bandwidth of the four-to-one interleaver is 73 GHz. Finally, a 100-GBd PAM-4 (200 Gb/s) signal is generated by interleaving four 25-GBd PAM-4 streams while consuming 700 mW.