Abstract

A large number of picosecond optical and opto-electronic techniques have recently been proposed and demonstrated^1,2 for the characterization of high-speed GaAs integrated circuits (IC) , including the use of electro-optic sampling³ for the measurement of on-chip waveforms². In this paper, we demonstrate the use of picosecond electro-optic sampling for the precise measurement of relative timing between waveforms at different points internal to a GaAs integrated circuit. In particular, we report precise pulse propagation and switching characteristics for both the "1"-to-"0" and "0"-to-"1" transitions in digital ICs of buffered FET logic design^1,4, from which single gate propagation delays of 73 ± 3 picoseconds are inferred for the chosen inverter gates; in addition, temporal delays of less than 10 picoseconds have been measured for pulse propagation between diodes internal to such gates.

© 1986 Optical Society of America