Coherent Optical Networking

Why Coherent?
Significant technical challenges moving to 40G/100G using Direct Detection

Capacity Evolution
QAM, M-ARY
Imaginary part of signal 8 6 4 2 0 -2 -4 -6 -8 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 Real part of signal 6 8

Dispersion Compensation
Conventional 10G Optical Link with DCMs

Bits per symbol

With coherent technology, system capacity is the product of three dimensions, an increase of: 1) symbol rate, 2) constellation multiplicity, and 3) subcarrier multiplicity. Tx
1 span

Rx
DCM DCM DCM DCM

Super Channels
Single manageable optical entity
fs c ub ar

r rie

Symbol rate (symbols/sec)

DP QPSK Signal

Coherent 40G/100G Optical Links with Electronic Dispersion Compensation

DSP Rx
1 span

Coherent Optical Technology

C-band Capacity Pb/s Coherent + DWDM

Df
N

um

be

ro

freq
Coherent technology, with a local oscillator approximately centered on the signals frequency band, provides a 4.3dB improvement in noise tolerance over traditional direct detection. The most important characteristic of a coherent receiver, access to the optical electrical field (E-field), provides access to amplitude, phase and polarization information; one can now increase transmission rates via advanced modulation techniques which use multiple bits per symbol. Digital signal processing techniques can now also be used to fully compensate for linear degradations from optical filtering, chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion, and polarization dependent loss. The spectral selectivity characteristic of a coherent receiver allows further capacity scaling using coherent demultiplexing of multiple carriers. It also enables new, more flexible photonic architectures such as an elegant colorless architecture with minimal optical filtering. With coherent technology, one can overlay 40G/100G on 10+ year-old systems that had been engineering for 10G IMDD, and reap the benefits of increased spectral efficiency with minimal network investment.
X-pol I
Phase Shift Polarization Beam Splitter Phase Shift

All three dimensions must be exploited in order to optimize system spectral efficiency, performance, cost, and reliability, and become critical elements as the network evolves to 400G/1T. A software-programmable modem can alter baud rates and modulation formats to suit link performance.

Tx
Fiber Effects: CD, PMD, PDL

With the removal of DCMs and their associated amplifiers from the network, electronic dispersion compensation provides benefits of: 1) lower CAPEX, 2) lower power consumption 3) higher system availability, and 4) reduced latency (20-25% in NDSF-based networks). Uncompensated systems provide an optimal performance environment for coherent transponders, and offer the easiest migration path to coherent 40G/100G systems. Compensating for CD, PMD, etc. in the DSP allows for path-independent performance within the transparent reach of the transponder and opens the door to simple re-routing of wavelengths across the network. Uncompensated networks remove all the link engineering associated with compensating for CD and PMD, and operate with better performance than 10G over PMD-challenged fiber.

Tb/s

Spectral Efficiency
103 20 The Shannon limit (orange line), is the upper limit for channel capacity for a fixed amount of noise.

DD + DWDM

Gb/s Direct Detection (DD)

102

100 Gb/s 40 Gb/s

2 0.8

Spectral Efficiency

Gb/s in 50 GHz

Standards
ITU-T ITU-T IEEE IEEE

Coherent technology scales for capacity growth

101

10 Gb/s

0.2

X-pol Q Y-pol I Y-pol Q

Clock and Digital Analog to Data Signal Digital Converter Processing Recovery
100 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

In practice, spectral efficiency is limited by non-linearities. A spectral efficiency of 12 bits/s/Hz is conceivable with ~1600 km reach by employing compensation for intra-channel nonlinearities. The maximum C-Band capacity can exceed 50 Tb/s.

OTN Network
OIF OIF

OSNR in 0.1 nm [dB]

Laser Frequency Control

Complexity buried in cost-effective CMOS

There are four key components that comprise state-of-the-art coherent designs: 1) high-speed, high-resolution DACs for channel pre-equalization and offering modulation format freedom (BPSK, QPSK, QAM), 2) high-speed, high-resolution ADCs performing channel post-equalization and polarization recovery, 3) ultra-high-performance FEC for maximum reach, and 4) advanced DSP algorithms compensating for optical filtering effects, CD, PMD, and PDL.

New Flexible Architectures

Modulation Formats
6 5 4 3 2 1 0
On/Off Keying 40 Gbaud COH-BPSK 40Gbaud COH-DP-QPSK 10 Gbaud

Coherent Optics

ITU-T OTN Hierarchy

1GbE 2.5G STM-16/OC-48
ODU0 (L) ODU1 (L)
40 x 8x 2x

ASE Tolerance (dB)

These modulation formats with their constellation diagrams represent the same bit rate (in this example 40 Gb/s) and their tolerance to amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise. Both coherent BPSK and coherent DP-QPSK offer superior performance and cost advantages.

ODU1 (H) OTU1

Gridless
Up to 30% spectrum recovery

Simple Power Splitter & Combiner

LO

Various 10G STM-64/OC-192

ODUflex

DBPSK 40Gbaud COH-DP-8-PSK 6.7 Gbaud

Optical Broadcast
Low-cost components replacing high-cost components
LO

ODU2 (H) ODU2 (L)

10 x 32 x

OTU2

DQPSK 20 Gbaud

FC1200, 10GbE STM-256/OC-768, 40GbE

ODU2e (L)
10 x 3x

OTU2e G.Sup43
ODU3 (H)
4x 4x

COH-DP-16QAM 5 Gbaud

Polarization Multiplexing or Dual Polarization: The channel bit rate can be doubled without affecting bandwidth by combining orthogonal polarizations.

Coherent optical processors enable new, more flexible architectures.

LO

ODU3 (L)
2x

OTU3
ODU3e1 (H) OTU3e1 G.Sup43 ODU3e2 (H)
80 x

Included in revised G.709 Included in G.Sup43

Bits per Symbol

Unified Network Management

OTU3e2 G.Sup43 OTU4

ODU4 (H)
Inter-Metro & Long-Haul Packet-Optical Network

Acronyms
ADC ASE BPSK CD CMOS DAC DBPSK DCM DD DQPSK DP-QPSK DSP DWDM FEC Analog-Digital Converter Amplified Spontaneous Emission Binary Phase Shift Keying Chromatic Dispersion Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor Digital-Analog Converter Differential Binary Phase Shift Keying Dispersion Compensation Module Direct Detection Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keying Dual Polarization Quadrature Phase Shift Keying Digital Signal Processing Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing Forward Error Correction GigE IEEE IMDD ITU-T Gigabit Ethernet Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Intensity Modulated Direct Detection International Telecommunications Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector MSA Multi-Source Agreement PMD NDSF Non Dispersion-shifted Fiber nm nanometer ps OIF Optical Internetworking Forum PSK ODU Optical channel Data Unit QAM OTU Optical Transport Unit OTN Optical Transport Network QPSK PDL Polarization Dependent Loss ROADM PM QPSK Polarization-Multiplexed Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (= DP-QPSK) STM

Inter-Metro & Long-Haul Packet-Optical Network

100GbE

ODU4 (L)

Products Packet-Optical Transport

Advanced Services Platform Packet-Optical Platforms

Packet-Optical Switching
Reconfigurable Switching Systems

Polarization Mode Dispersion picosecond Phase Shift Keying Quadrature Amplitude Modulation Quadrature Phase Shift Keying Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer Synchronous Transmission Mode

Undersea Network

Ciena may from time to time make changes to the products or specifications contained herein without notice. 2011 Ciena Corporation. All rights reserved.

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