On-Chip transmitter and receiver front-ends for ultra-broadband wired and optical-fiber communications

Increasing line rates beyond 56Gb/s is a big challenge for transceiver front-ends. We discuss recent developments towards 100Gb/s copper, +56Gb/s multi-channel single-mode VCSEL links and segmented MZM drivers for advanced modulation

Energy-efficiency improvements for optical access

This article discusses novel approaches to improve energy efficiency of different optical access technologies, including time division multiplexing passive optical network (TDM-PON), time and wavelength division multiplexing PON (TWDM-PON), point-to-point (PTP) access network, wavelength division multiplexing PON (WDM-PON), and orthogonal frequency division multiple access PON (OFDMA-PON). These approaches include cyclic sleep mode, energy-efficient bit interleaving protocol, power reduction at component level, or frequency band selection. Depending on the target optical access technology, one or a combination of different approaches can be applied

Broadband Receiver Electronic Circuits for Fiber-Optical Communication Systems

The exponential growth of internet traffic drives datacenters to constantly improve their capacity. As the copper based network infrastructure is being replaced by fiber-optical interconnects, new industrial standards for higher datarates are required. Several research and industrial organizations are aiming towards 400 Gb Ethernet and beyond, which brings new challenges to the field of high-speed broadband electronic circuit design. Replacing OOK with higher M-ary modulation formats and using higher datarates increases network capacity but at the cost of power. With datacenters rapidly becoming significant energy consumers on the global scale, the energy efficiency of the optical interconnect transceivers takes a primary role in the development of novel systems. There are several additional challenges unique in the design of a broadband shortreach fiber-optical receiver system. The sensitivity of the receiver depends on the noise performance of the PD and the electronics. The overall system noise must be optimized for the specific application, modulation scheme, PD and VCSEL characteristics. The topology of the transimpedance amplifier affects the noise and frequency response of the PD, so the system must be optimized as a whole. Most state-of-the-art receivers are built on high-end semiconductor SiGe and InP technologies. However, there are still several design decisions to be made in order to get low noise, high energy efficiency and adequate bandwidth. In order to overcome the frequency limitations of the optoelectronic components, bandwidth enhancement and channel equalization techniques are used. In this work several different blocks of a receiver system are designed and characterized. A broadband, 50 GHz bandwidth CB-based TIA and a tunable gain equalizer are designed in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS process. An ultra-broadband traveling wave amplifier is presented, based on a 250 nm InP DHBT technology demonstrating a 207 GHz bandwidth. Two TIA front-end topologies with 133 GHz bandwidth, a CB and a CE with shunt-shunt feedback, based on a 130 nm InP DHBT technology are designed and compared

Wideband integrated circuits for optical communication systems

The exponential growth of internet traffic drives datacenters to constantly improvetheir capacity. Several research and industrial organizations are aiming towardsTbps Ethernet and beyond, which brings new challenges to the field of high-speedbroadband electronic circuit design. With datacenters rapidly becoming significantenergy consumers on the global scale, the energy efficiency of the optical interconnecttransceivers takes a primary role in the development of novel systems. Furthermore,wideband optical links are finding application inside very high throughput satellite(V/HTS) payloads used in the ever-expanding cloud of telecommunication satellites,enabled by the maturity of the existing fiber based optical links and the hightechnology readiness level of radiation hardened integrated circuit processes. Thereare several additional challenges unique in the design of a wideband optical system.The overall system noise must be optimized for the specific application, modulationscheme, PD and laser characteristics. Most state-of-the-art wideband circuits are builton high-end semiconductor SiGe and InP technologies. However, each technologydemands specific design decisions to be made in order to get low noise, high energyefficiency and adequate bandwidth. In order to overcome the frequency limitationsof the optoelectronic components, bandwidth enhancement and channel equalizationtechniques are used. In this work various blocks of optical communication systems aredesigned attempting to tackle some of the aforementioned challenges. Two TIA front-end topologies with 133 GHz bandwidth, a CB and a CE with shunt-shunt feedback,are designed and measured, utilizing a state-of-the-art 130 nm InP DHBT technology.A modular equalizer block built in 130 nm SiGe HBT technology is presented. Threeultra-wideband traveling wave amplifiers, a 4-cell, a single cell and a matrix single-stage, are designed in a 250 nm InP DHBT process to test the limits of distributedamplification. A differential VCSEL driver circuit is designed and integrated in a4x 28 Gbps transceiver system for intra-satellite optical communications based in arad-hard 130nm SiGe process

Photonics Based Techniques for Millimeter-Wave Generation, Transmission, and Multiplexing

Millimeter-waves have found wide application in various fields. In this research, MMW generation, transmitting and receiving, multiplexing techniques are investigated. Three ways of MMW generation based on photonics are discussed. By modeling these three techniques and applying different situations of transmission links up to 100 km and fixed bit rate of 2.5 Gb/s, different results were found and compared to each other. Also, the effect of chromatic dispersion is discussed in addition to the phase conjugation way of dispersion compensation. Dispersion compensation based on phase conjugation was also simulated and applied to OSSB millimeter-wave generator in order to transmit the generated signals through 100 km of fiber and data rate of 10 Gb/s without dispersion effect

Silicon-Organic Hybrid (SOH) Mach-Zehnder Modulators for 100 Gbit/s On-Off Keying

Electro-optic modulators for high-speed on-off keying (OOK) are key components of short- and mediumreach interconnects in data-center networks. Besides small footprint and cost-efficient large-scale production, small drive voltages and ultra-low power consumption are of paramount importance for such devices. Here we demonstrate that the concept of silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) integration is perfectly suited for meeting these challenges. The approach combines the unique processing advantages of large-scale silicon photonics with unrivalled electro-optic (EO) coefficients obtained by molecular engineering of organic materials. In our proof-of-concept experiments, we demonstrate generation and transmission of OOK signals with line rates of up to 100 Gbit/s using a 1.1 mm-long SOH Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) which features a {\pi}-voltage of only 0.9 V. This experiment represents not only the first demonstration of 100 Gbit/s OOK on the silicon photonic platform, but also leads to the lowest drive voltage and energy consumption ever demonstrated at this data rate for a semiconductor-based device. We support our experimental results by a theoretical analysis and show that the nonlinear transfer characteristic of the MZM can be exploited to overcome bandwidth limitations of the modulator and of the electric driver circuitry. The devices are fabricated in a commercial silicon photonics line and can hence be combined with the full portfolio of standard silicon photonic devices. We expect that high-speed power-efficient SOH modulators may have transformative impact on short-reach optical networks, enabling compact transceivers with unprecedented energy efficiency that will be at the heart of future Ethernet interfaces at Tbit/s data rates

Microwave Photonics: Current challenges towards widespread application

Microwave Photonics, a symbiotic field of research that brings together the worlds of optics and radio frequency is currently facing several challenges in its transition from a niche to a truly widespread technology essential to support the ever-increasing values for speed, bandwidth, processing capability and dynamic range that will be required in next generation hybrid access networks. We outline these challenges, which are the subject of the contributions to this focus issue

Applications of perfect difference codes in fiber-optics and wireless optical code-division multiplexing/multiple-access systems

After establishing itself in the radio domain, Spread spectrum code-division multiplexing/multiple-access (CDMA) has seen a recent upsurge in optical domain as well. Due to its fairness, flexibility, service differentiation and increased inherent security, CDMA is proved to be more suitable for the bursty nature of local area networks than synchronous multiplexing techniques like Frequency/Wavelength Division Multiplexing (F/WDM) and Time Division Multiplexing (TDM). In optical domain, CDMA techniques are commonly known as Optical-CDMA (O-CDMA). All optical CDMA systems are plagued with the problem of multiple-access interference (MAI). Spectral amplitude coding (SAC) is one of the techniques used in the literature to deal with the problem of MAI. The choice of spreading code in any CDMA system is another way to ensure the successful recovery of data at the receiving end by minimizing the effect of MAI and it also dictates the hardware design of the encoder and decoder. This thesis focuses on the efficient design of encoding and decoding hardware. Perfect difference codes (PDC) are chosen as spreading sequences due to their good correlation properties. In most of the literature, evaluation of error probability is based on the assumptions of ideal conditions. Such assumptions ignore major physical impairments such as power splitting losses at the multiplexers of transmitters and receivers, and gain losses at the receivers, which may in practice be an overestimate or underestimate of the actual probability of error. This thesis aims to investigate thoroughly with the consideration of practical impairments the applications of PDCs and other spreading sequences in optical communications systems based on spectral-amplitude coding and utilizing codedivision as multiplexing/multiple-access technique. This work begins with a xix general review of optical CDMA systems. An open-ended practical approach has been used to evaluate the actual error probabilities of OCDM/A systems under study. It has been concluded from results that mismatches in the gains of photodetectors, namely avalanche photodiode (APDs), used at the receiver side and uniformity loss in the optical splitters results in the inaccurate calculation of threshold level used to detect the data and can seriously degrade the system bit error rate (BER) performance. This variation in the threshold level can be compensated by employing techniques which maintain a constant interference level so that the decoding architecture does not have to estimate MAI every time to make a data bit decision or by the use of balanced sequences. In this thesis, as a solution to the above problem, a novel encoding and decoding architecture is presented for perfect difference codes based on common zero code technique which maintains a constant interference level at all instants in CDM system and thus relieves the need of estimating interference. The proposed architecture only uses single multiplexer at the transmitters for all users in the system and a simple correlation based receiver for each user. The proposed configuration not only preserves the ability of MAI in Spectral-Amplitude Coding SAC-OCDM system, but also results in a low cost system with reduced complexity. The results show that by using PDCs in such system, the influence of MAI caused by other users can be reduced, and the number of active users can be increased significantly. Also a family of novel spreading sequences are constructed called Manchestercoded Modified Legendre codes (MCMLCs) suitable for SAC based OCDM systems. MCMLCs are designed to be used for both single-rate and Multirate systems. First the construction of MCMLCs is presented and then the bit error rate performance is analyzed. Finally the proposed encoding/decoding architecture utilizing perfect difference codes is applied in wireless infrared environment and the performance is found to be superior to other codes