In this paper, two versions of a complete RF front-end for a 10 Gbps optical receiver are presented. The RF front-end consists of a transimpedance amplifier and a limiter amplifier. Two versions of the TIA amplifiers are proposed. The first topology has 54 dB transimpedance gain, 11.5 GHz bandwidth and has a input current noise density of only 6.8pA/Hz. The second topology is composed by a cascade os two inverters. This topology has 48 dB transimpedance gain, 11.2 GHz bandwidth, a input current noise density of 8.9pA/Hz and occupies an area of only 0.048 mm(2). The limiter amplifier for both optical receivers is a five stage cherry-hooper amplifier with active inductors optimized for low power. The main amplifier has 38 dB gain, 9.8 GHz Bandwidth, 69 mW of power consumption and only 0.171 mm(2) of die area. The complete RF front-end is fully integrated and has 10 GHz bandwidth. The circuits were designed in 0.13 m RF CMOS technology. (c) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:1499-1504, 201658614991504