This paper describes 250-Mb/s fiber optic transmitter and receiver ICs for plastic optical fiber applications using a$ 0.18-{mu}m$ CMOS technology. Simple signal and light detection schemes are introduced for power reduction in sleep mode. The transmitter converts non-return-to-zero digital data into 650-nm visible-red light signal and the receiver recovers the digital data from the incident light signal through up to 50-m plastic optical fiber. The transmitter and receiver ICs occupy only 0.62 $mm^2$ of area including electrostatic discharge protection diodes and bonding pads. The transmitter IC consumes 23 mA with 20 mA of LED driving currents, and the receiver IC consumes 16 mA with 4 mA of output driving currents at 250 Mb/s of data rate from a 3.3-V supply in active mode. In sleep mode, the transmitter and receiver ICs consume only 25 ${mu}A$ and 40 ${mu}A$, respectively.