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DAC-less PAM4 signal generation using a silicon dual-drive push-pull MZI modulator
Optics Letters
|April 15, 2024
Summary
This study presents a novel DAC-less Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels (PAM-4) signal generation method. Our silicon modulator design achieves higher speeds and lower error rates, offering a cost-effective solution for advanced optical communications.
Area of Science:
- Photonics and Optical Communications
- Integrated Silicon Photonics
Background:
- Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels (PAM-4) is crucial for high-speed data transmission.
- Existing PAM-4 generation often relies on complex Digital-to-Analog Converters (DACs), increasing cost and power consumption.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate a Digital-to-Analog Converter-less (DAC-less) PAM-4 signal generation technique.
- To improve the performance and cost-efficiency of PAM-4 signal generation for optical communication systems.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing a silicon Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) modulator.
- Employing a series push-pull configuration driven by two independent binary signals with varying amplitudes.
- Comparing the proposed scheme against a traditional differential driving scheme.
Main Results:
- The proposed DAC-less configuration significantly boosts transfer speed between PAM-4 levels.
- Achieved enhanced performance metrics compared to the differential driving scheme.
- Experimentally demonstrated a lower bit-error rate (BER) than the differential scheme.
Conclusions:
- The demonstrated DAC-less PAM-4 generation scheme is feasible and cost-efficient.
- This approach offers a promising alternative for next-generation optical transceivers.
- The push-pull MZI modulator configuration enhances PAM-4 signal generation performance.
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