Electronic equalization for enabling communications at OC-192 rates using OC-48 components

Area of Science:

• Optical communications
• Electronic engineering
• Signal processing

Background:

• Traditional high-speed systems require specialized, costly components.
• Component limitations often restrict data transmission rates.
• Electronic equalization offers a potential solution to overcome these limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the use of electronic equalization for enabling 2.5Gb/s components to operate at 10Gb/s data rates.
• To analyze the impact of receiver bandwidth on the performance of equalized optical links.
• To experimentally validate the feasibility of using standard 2.5Gb/s transmitters in 10Gb/s systems with equalization.

Main Methods:

• Simulating the performance of optical links employing electronic equalization.
• Conducting experiments with transmitters designed for 2.5Gb/s data rates.
• Evaluating the effect of receiver bandwidth on equalized systems, specifically photo-receivers with 2.5 GHz bandwidths.

Main Results:

• Electronic equalization successfully allows components designed for 2.5Gb/s to be utilized at 10Gb/s.
• Simulations and experiments demonstrate the viability of this approach.
• Photo-receivers with 2.5 GHz bandwidths exhibit minimal performance penalties when post-detection electronic equalization is applied.

Conclusions:

• Electronic equalization is an effective technique for upscaling component data rates from 2.5Gb/s to 10Gb/s.
• The proposed method allows for cost-effective implementation of higher-speed optical systems.
• The findings support the use of existing 2.5Gb/s infrastructure for achieving 10Gb/s transmission speeds with minimal additional penalty.