AGC circuit providing control of output signal amplitude and of output signal DC level

Abstract

An AGC circuit suitable for applications such as an optical receiving apparatus includes a differential amplification adjustment circuit section for operating on a pair of input signals to produce a corresponding pair of complementary controlled output signals having a fixed amplitude, a peak detector for detecting a peak value of at least one of the controlled output signals, a DC monitoring circuit for detecting the DC level of at least one of the controlled output signals, and an amplitude fixing control circuit for deriving a value of voltage difference between the peak value and DC level and for generating an amplitude control signal based on comparing the voltage difference with a reference voltage. The differential amplification adjustment circuit section applies a degree of amplification that is determined by the amplitude control signal, to thereby perform feedback control of the output signal amplitude. The AGC circuit can further be configured to control the DC levels of the controlled output signals, so that both DC level and amplitude of the controlled output signals are held constant against changes in DC level and amplitude of the input signals.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.