PRESENT STATUS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF HIGH-SPEED LIGHTWAVE ICS BASED ON INP

High-speed integrated circuits (ICs) are essential for expanding the capacity of lightwave communications. InP-based heterostructure field effect transistors (HFETs) and heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) are very promising for producing high-speed digital and analog ICs. This paper reviews the current status of InP-based lightwave communication ICs in terms of device, circuit, and packaging technologies. A successful 40-Gbit/s, 300-km optical fiber transmission using InP HFET ICs demonstrates the feasibility of the ICs. Furthermore, we estimate future IC performance based on the relationship between electron device figures-of-merit and IC speed. To keep up with the performance trend, technological problems, like inter- and intra-chip interconnections, have to be solved.