Research and Development of High Bandwidth Instruments for Testing Optical Communication Signals beyond 100 Gbps
The research in this first PhD year has been mainly focused on the development of advanced instruments for testing optical communication systems operating at very high-speed data rate. Transmission solutions exploiting PAM-4 modulation are considered for WDM intra/inter datacenter connections and short/medium reach networks.
In particular, the activity has been concentrated on the design and development (Alpha prototype stage now with the support of SmarTest) of a modular multichannel Bit Error Rate Tester characterized by PXIe form factor. Each module is capable of generating four PAM-4 data streams signals up to 28 Gbaud for an aggregate baud rate of 100+ Gbaud. Two modules are synchronized to generate 400 Gbps data traffic and detect bit errors in real time.
;
1. Multiple channel data systems with built-in half and quarter rate clock synthesizer;
2. Cover both NRZ and PAM-4 modulation schemes;
3. SSPRQ and compliance patterns (NRZ and Q equivalents);
4. FEC (Forward Error Corrections); 5. Real time Error Detection, Eye Diagram and Jitter Bathtub analysis.
The developed BERT modules are to be experimented with innovative energy-efficient laser sources, such as VCSELs, to implement sustainable photonic systems in terms of cost, power consumption and footprint (experimentation at PoliCom Lab – DEIB postponed due to COVID-19 lockdown).
Back to Current Students