The transmitter path converts serial NRZ electrical data from line rates of 9.95 Gbps to 11.35 Gbps to a standard compliant optical signal. The transmitter accepts a 100 Ω differential 120 mV peak-to-peak to 820 mV peak-to-peak 10 Gbps CML electrical signal on TD- and TD+ pins. Inside the module, the differential signals pass through a signal conditioner with equalization that compensates for losses and deterministic jitter present on the input data stream. The transmit CDR function generates a clock that is at the same frequency as the incoming data bit rate of the electrical data input. The clock is phase aligned by a phase locked loop (PLL) that samples the data in the center of the data eye pattern. The CDR function does not require a reference clock to lock to incoming data. The CDR contains a lock detect circuit that indicates successful locking of the PLL onto the incoming data. The output of the Tx signal conditioner is input to the modulator driver which transforms the small-swing digital voltage to an output modulation that drives a cooled InP ILMZ modulator. The optical signal is engineered to meet the SONET/SDH, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 10 G Fibre Channel, and corresponding Forward Error Correction (FEC) rates DWDM specifications at ITU grids with 50 GHz channel spacing. The unit provides closed-loop control of transmitted laser power, modulation swing, center wavelength over temperature, and voltage variations. The laser is coupled to single-mode optical fiber through an industry-standard LC optical connector.