Open Access100 Gb/s PAM4 transmission system for datacenter interconnects using a SiP ME-MZM based DAC-less transmitter and a VSB self-coherent receiver
Author(s) -
Zhenping Xing,
Alireza Samani,
Meng Xiang,
Eslam El-Fiky,
Thang M. Hoang,
David Patel,
Rui Li,
Meng Qiu,
Md. Ghulam Saber,
Mohamed Morsy-Osman,
David V. Plant
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.26.023969
Subject(s) - transmitter , bit error rate , compatible sideband transmission , transmission (telecommunications) , electronic engineering , sideband , optics , physics , modulation (music) , pulse amplitude modulation , forward error correction , computer science , quadrature amplitude modulation , pulse shaping , telecommunications , pulse (music) , radio frequency , engineering , laser , channel (broadcasting) , decoding methods , detector , acoustics
We experimentally demonstrate a digital-to-analog-converter-less (DAC-less) vestigial sideband (VSB) 4-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) transmission system for data center interconnects (DCIs) using a silicon photonic (SiP) multi-electrode Mach-Zehnder modulator (ME-MZM) based DAC-less transmitter and a VSB self-coherent receiver. The impacts of linear and nonlinear impairments on the proposed system and their mitigation methods are comprehensively studied. By using Kramer-Kronig (KK) detection, frequency domain chromatic dispersion compensation, and short-memory time domain Volterra equalization at the receiver, we report a 112 Gb/s PAM4 transmission over 40 km standard single mode fiber (SSMF) with a bit error rate (BER) below the 7% overhead (OH) hard-decision forward error correction threshold of 3.8 × 10 -3 , and a 120 Gb/s PAM4 transmission over 80 km SSMF with a BER below the 20% OH soft-decision forward error correction threshold of 2 × 10 -2 , without any transmitter side digital signal processing such as pre-emphasis and pulse shaping.