Design principles to achieve good eye opening and circuit optimization to extract high performance from AlGaAs/GaAs HBT devices are described. Using the circuit techniques and HBT's with an f(T) of 70 GHz and an f(max) of 50 GHz, four kinds of SSI's are developed for future optical transmission systems. High-bit-rate operation of over 20 Gb/s (26-GHz toggle flip-flop, 20-Gb/s decision circuit, 20-Gb/s EXCLUSIVE OR/NOR gate, and 28-Gb/s selector IC), extremely fast rise and fall times (20-80%) of 20 and 14 ps, respectively, and good eye opening am obtained. In addition, potential performance gains that might be realized through advanced circuit and device design are appraised, and throughputs as fast as 40 Gb/s are predicted.