Open AccessDigital-to-analog converters for high-speed optical communications using frequency interleaving: impairments and characteristics
Author(s) -
Christian Schmidt,
Christoph Kottke,
Ronald Freund,
Friedel Gerfers,
Volker Jungnickel
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.26.006758
Subject(s) - interleaving , converters , computer science , bandwidth (computing) , electronic engineering , digital to analog converter , cmos , analog signal , optical communication , power (physics) , digital signal processing , electrical engineering , telecommunications , physics , engineering , computer hardware , quantum mechanics , voltage
Digital-to-analog converters (DACs) for high-speed optical communication systems based on CMOS technology have bandwidths lower than nowadays electro-optic components. A promising concept to circumvent this bottleneck is the frequency-interleaved DAC (FI-DAC) concept. In this paper, experimental results for the application of a 180 GS/s FI-DAC with 40 GHz analog bandwidth based on two DACs in a high-speed optical link are discussed and compared with simulation results. Thereby, phase and power mismatches, spectral overlap, clipping and the required DAC resolution are investigated. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimations based on a discrete multi-tone (DMT) signal show the influence of the individual analog components on the signal quality.