CMOS Optical Preamplifier Design Using Graphical Circuit Analysis

Acknowledgements
Many people helped to make this thesis possible. I am indebted to my supervisor, David
Johns, for being my mentor for the last ten years, for guiding me, both personally and
professionally, and for providing me with the opportunities that I needed to grow as both a
researcher and instructor. I wish to thank Professors Ken Martin, John Long, and Igor
Filanovsky for their valuable comments and suggestions throughout the thesis. To Professor
Adel Sedra: my sincere thanks for your advice, support, and wisdom throughout the years.
Many thanks to Professor Keith Balmain and to Gerald Dubois for their help with the EMC
chamber, and to Dr. Agustin Ochoa Jr. and Takis Zourntos for their helpful discussions on the
DPI/SFG method. On a broader note, I wish to acknowledge the many professors in the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering who have inspired me with their teaching.
I endeavour to pass on to future students that which I have so richly inherited from them.
I wish to thank my friends at the University of Toronto for their invaluable technical
assistance and for making my years here so special. In particular, I want to thank Bahram Zand,
James Maligeorgos, Steve Hranilovic, Ali Sheikholeslami, Wynstan Tong, Kasra Ardalan,
Vincent Gaudet, Steve Jantzi, Stephen Alie, Bryn Owen, and Karen Kozma. A special thanks to
my dear friends Angela Chuang, Ben Schwartz, and Ravi Ananth for their constant
encouragement, support, and prayers during my studies.
To my wife, Du: thank you for your tireless support of our family throughout this work. To
you I owe everything — with compound interest! My deepest thanks to my parents for their
unfailing love and support, and for teaching Du, me, and our wonderful sons, Damen and
Steven, the true meaning of family.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the funding support provided by the Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Micronet, and the University of Toronto.
IC fabrication was facilitated by the Canadian Microelectronics Corporation (CMC).
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