Bouziane, R; (2013) Real-time Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Transceivers. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

Abstract

Optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (O-OFDM) is a potential candidate for 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and beyond due to its high spectral efficiency and strong resilience towards chromatic and polarization mode dispersion. In this thesis, investigations have been performed into the feasibility of O-OFDM in high speed optical fibre communications. First, an overview of OFDM fundamentals and optical fibre communications is given. Numerical simulations which were performed to characterise and optimise real-time OFDM transceivers are then presented. The effects of a variety of design parameters on the performance of the system are studied. Amongst the key parameters included in the study are the quantisation and clipping noise in data converters, and the quantisation errors in the fast Fourier transform and its inverse (FFT/IFFT). Optimum parameters that give the best trade-off between performance and cost in terms of bit precision are determined. It was found that these parameters depend on the modulation format as well as the size of the FFT used in the system. The thesis then presents the design of a multi-gigabit real-time O-OFDM transmitter based on field programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation. The 21.4 GS/s real-time transmitter was built and used to transmit 8.36 Gb/s directly-detected single sideband QPSK-OFDM signals over 1600 km of uncompensated standard single mode fibre. This was one of the first demonstrations of real-time OFDM transmitters operating at such high line rates. It remains the longest transmission distance achieved with a real-time OFDM transmitter. The next step in confirming the feasibility of O-OFDM involves the design and assessment of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) implementations. In the final part of the thesis, digital signal processing (DSP) circuits for 21.8 Gb/s and 43.7 Gb/s QPSK- and 16-QAM-encoded O-OFDM transceivers with 50 data subcarriers were designed at the register-transfer-level, and synthesis and simulations were carried out to assess their performance, power consumption, and chip area. The aim of the study is to determine the suitability of OFDM technology for low-cost optical interconnects. Power calculations based on synthesis for a 65nm standard-cell library show that the DSP components of the transceiver consume 18.2 mW/Gb/s and 12.8 mW/Gb/s in the case of QPSK and 16-QAM respectively. The effects of modulation format and FFT size on the area and power consumption of the transceivers are also quantified. Finally, characterisation results showing the trade-offs between energy consumption and chip footprint are presented and analysed to help designers optimise the transceivers according the requirements and specifications.

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