SIGNAL CONSTELLATION DISTORTION AND BER DEGRADATION DUE TO HARDWARE IMPAIRMENTS IN SIX-PORT RECEIVERS WITH ANALOG I/Q GENERATION

Since its introduction in 1994 direct conversion sixport receivers have attracted a considerable attention at microwave frequencies, with most recent work focusing on the so called sixport receivers with analog I/Q generation. Besides its applications at microwave frequencies, six-port receivers with I/Q regeneration play a crucial role in the optical communications field, as they are the most promising candidates for optical coherent receivers that are being developed for 100 Gigabit Ethernet transceivers. In this paper we analytically model the influence of six-port junction hardware impairments on receiver performance. New analytical expressions are developed which give geometrical interpretation of signal constellation distortion due to hardware impairments and allow for the definition of several interesting figures of merit. Closed formulas are also proposed to analytically calculate BER degradation, under AWGN conditions, from these figures of merit. Finally, the proposed formulas are validated by means of simulation, and it is shown that they can be of practical interest to set the specifications of the six-port junction components.