200 Gbps/lane IM/DD Technologies for Short Reach Optical Interconnects
Journal article, 2020

Client-side optics are facing an ever-increasing upgrading pace, driven by upcoming 5G related services and datacenter applications. The demand for a single lane data rate is soon approaching 200 Gbps. To meet such high-speed requirement, all segments of traditional intensity modulation direct detection (IM/DD) technologies are being challenged. The characteristics of electrical and optoelectronic components and the performance of modulation, coding, and digital signal processing (DSP) techniques are being stretched to their limits. In this context, we witnessed technological breakthroughs in several aspects, including development of broadband devices, novel modulation formats and coding, and high-performance DSP algorithms for the past few years. A great momentum has been accumulated to overcome the aforementioned challenges. In this article, we focus on IM/DD transmissions, and provide an overview of recent research and development efforts on key enabling technologies for 200 Gbps per lane and beyond. Our recent demonstrations of 200 Gbps short-reach transmissions with 4-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and discrete multitone signals are also presented as examples to show the system requirements in terms of device characteristics and DSP performance. Apart from digital coherent technologies and advanced direct detection systems, such as Stokes–vector and Kramers–Kronig schemes, we expect high-speed IM/DD systems will remain advantageous in terms of system cost, power consumption, and footprint for short reach applications in the short- to mid- term perspective.

Author

Xiaodan Pang

Infinera

Oskars Ozolins

NETLAB

Rui Lin

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks

Lu Zhang

Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Aleksejs Udalcovs

NETLAB

Lei Xue

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks

Richard Schatz

Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

Urban Westergren

Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

Shilin Xiao

Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Weisheng Hu

Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Gunnar Jacobsen

NETLAB

Sergei Popov

Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

Jiajia Chen

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks

Journal of Lightwave Technology

0733-8724 (ISSN) 1558-2213 (eISSN)

Vol. 38 2 492-503 8943295

Subject Categories

Telecommunications

Other Physics Topics

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2019.2962322

More information

Latest update

4/6/2022 7