Optical Link Design

Classification of fiber-optic systems

• Point-to-point link.
• Local area networks.
• Distribution network.
Point-to-Point Link
 Point-to-Point Digital Link

• Digital data transmission is more advantageous than analog transmission. The analog
signal is converted into digital pulses by pulse code modulation (PCM) after passing
through the stages of sampling, quantizing, and encoding. The digital data in the form of
pulses is then line coded using different techniques:
– Return-to-zero (RZ).
– Non-return-to-zero (NRZ).
– Phase encoded (PE).
 Point-to-Point Analog Link

• Analog transmission avoids the cost and complexity of digital equipments.

Irrespective of some disadvantages, analog systems are used for short-
distance communication, such as Cable TV (CATV) and direct cable
television.
• The analog baseband signal is modulated by the following systems:
– Direct modulation.
– Subcarrier modulation
 Multichannel Concept
Different ways to increase channel capacity
1. Installing new fiber
2. Increasing the bit rate
3. Using TDM

4. Using multiple wavelengths

Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)
 Local Area Networks
• Local area network or LAN
interconnects large number
of individual computers,
terminals, and devices,
such as printers, fax
modems within a local
area.
• Any user can randomly
transmit data to any other
user.
• The data transmission
through optical fiber cable
takes place in the form of
data packets.

LAN topologies: (a) Star; (b) ring; (c) data bus

 Distribution Network
• Optical fiber system can be
used to distribute the
information to a group of
subscribers, for example,
CATV, distribution of
telephone signals from
central switching office,
etc.
• The common distribution
network configurations are
hub topology and bus
topology.
• Several hubs can share the
single optical fiber cable
because of its large
bandwidth for connection
with main hub
Distribution network hub topology
 :: DESIGN CRITERIA ::
• It is not a small task to put the components together (e.g.
fibers, connectors, lasers, detectors, etc.), so that the whole
will function as a communication system with desirable
characteristics.
• Proper design/ engineering is requires for this task.
(1) Primary Design Criteria:
 Link Length
 Data Rate/BW
(2) Secondary Design Criteria:
 System Fidelity: BER, OSNR, Q-factor
 Cost: Components, installation, maintenance
 Upgradeability: Future Planning
 Design Steps
1. Operating wavelength selection
– Short distance: 800–900 nm
– Long distance: around 1,300 nm or 1,550 nm for low attenuation
2. Optical source selection
– LEDs: 150 (Mb/s)·km with wavelength 800–900 nm and larger than
1.5 (Gb/s)·km with wavelength:1,330 nm.
– InGaAsP lasers: 25 (Gb/s) km with wavelength 1,330 nm and ideally
around 500 (Gb/s) km with wavelength 1,550 nm. 10–15 dB more
power. However, these are more costly and have complex circuitry.
– For data rate 2.5 (Gb/s)·km or higher, a laser must be used.
3. Photodetector selection: Compared to Avalanche photo diode
PINs are less expensive and more stable with temperature. However, they
have less sensitivity.
4. Optical fiber selection: SMFs are used with lasers or edge-emitting
LEDs. Multimode fibers are used with LEDs.
 Design Considerations
1. Signals to be transmitted:
2. Power budget of the system
Loss or attenuation along the fiber.
Losses due to fiber connectors, splices, patch
panels.
3. Rise time budget/Dispersion limit of the
system:
 The broadening of pulse limits the maximum data
rate of the system and decides the maximum
bandwidth limit of fiber-optic system.
OPTICAL LINK DESIGN
 Link Budget Considerations

Two Types of Budgets

(1) Power Budget

(2) Rise Time/Bandwidth Budget
 Power Budget Analysis

• If Pi and Po are the optical powers entering the fiber and

leaving the fiber, respectively, then the total loss in dB is
given as P
Total loss = Pt 10log o
Pi
• Now,
Pt  Connector loss +Splice loss + Fiber attenuation +System margin
Pt  ( Nc  lc )  ( Ns  ls )  (  L)  System margin

• where Pi is the link input power, Po is the link output power, Nc is the number of
connectors, lc is the connector coupling loss, Ns is the number of splices, ls is the
splicing loss, L is the length of the fiber, 𝛼 is the attenuation constant of fiber.
Power Budget Requirements
PB : PRX > PMIN OR PRX > PSEN

PRX = Received Power

PMIN = Minimum Power at a certain BER
= Receiver’s sensitivity

PRX = PTX – Total Losses + Total Gain - PMARGIN

PTX = Transmitted Power

PMARGIN ≈ 6 dB (Standard Value)
Rise Time/Bandwidth
Budget Analysis
 Bandwidth Budget

T T’
OA OA
TX RX

Δτ = T’ - T

Medium and Devices

 Rise Time Budgeting
• Rise time budget is used to check the maximum bit
rate at which the system can work properly.
• System rise time is given as
where TSYS is the system rise time,
TTX is the transmitter rise time (Given by manufacturer),
TRX is the receiver rise time (Given by manufacturer),
TFIBER is the fiber rise time
• The total fiber rise time is TFIBER  TMODAL
2
 TMATERIAL
2

where TMODAL is the rise time resulting from intermodal distortion and
TMATERIAL is the rise time resulting from material dispersion

• If spectral width of fiber is given, then TFIBER  D    L

where D is the fiber dispersion in ps/km nm, is the spectral width in nm,
and L is the length of fiber.
 What is a good Rise time?
For a good reception of signal

Tsys < 0.7 x Tb for NRZ

DWDM
Tsys < 0.35 x Tb for RZ
(Tb=Pulse Width)

Bit Rate=1/Tb
:: PERFORMANCE EVALUATION CRITERIA ::

 Receiver performance is an important factor in optical

system design.

 The optical system design performance depends on the

DWDMto detect 1’s
performance of the receiver in its ability
and 0’s from an incoming optical signal.

 BER, OSNR, Q-factor and Eye Diagram are the

measure of the receiver’s and hence system’s
performance.

 Other parameters are ASE Noise and Crosstalk.

 :: BIT-ERROR RATE (BER):
::
•The bit error ratio (BER) is the number of bits
received with errors divided by the total
number of transmitted bits during a studied
time interval.

•BER is a unitless.

•BER may be affected by transmission channel

noise, interference, distortion, bit
synchronization problems, attenuation,
dispersion, etc.
 Bit Error Rate
• It is defined as the number of bit errors (Nerror) occurring over
a specific time interval, divided by the total number of bits
(Ntotal) sent during that interval
Nerror
BER 
Ntotal

• The BER is also known as the error probability and

commonly abbreviated as Perror.
 :: BIT-ERROR RATE (BER):
::
•In optical communication, BER(dB) vs.
Received Power(dBm) is usually used.

•Typically,
optical end systems should have a
BER of 10E-9 to 10E-12.
 :: EYE DIAGRAM::

•In telecommunication, an eye pattern, also known as an eye

diagram, is an oscilloscope display in which a digital data
signal from a receiver is repetitively sampled and applied to
the vertical input, while the data rate is used to trigger the
horizontal sweep.

•It is so called because, for several types of coding, the

pattern looks like a series of eyes between a pair of rails.

•It is an experimental tool for the evaluation of the combined

effects of channel noise and intersymbol interference on the
performance of a baseband pulse-transmission system.

•It is the synchronised superposition of all possible realisations

of the signal of interest viewed within a particular signalling
interval.
Different 3-bit Input signal bit-patterns and corresponding detected signals
 :: EYE DIAGRAM
::

• The vertical eye opening (height)

shows the ability to distinguish
between a 1 and 0 bit.
• The horizontal eye opening gives
the time period over which the
signal can be sampled without any
errors.

Typical Eye Pattern of Optical Signal [9]

Typical Eye-opening Penalty (denoted by A and B)

(a) Attenuation only (b) Attenuation, fiber dispersion, and non-linearity
Interpreting EYE Measurements

Eye-diagram feature What it measures

Eye opening (height, peak to peak) Additive noise in the signal

Peak distortion due to interruptions

Eye overshoot/undershoot
in the signal path

Timing synchronization & jitter

Eye width
effects

Intersymbol interference, additive

Eye closure
noise
Eye Diagrams
• The eye diagram is a
simple and powerful
measurement technique
for assessing the data-
handling ability of a
digital transmission
system.
• The eye opening is an
important parameter. The
larger size of eye opening
is indication of goodness
of signal.
• On the other hand, if the
eye is nearly closed,
signal detection is very
difficult or impossible.
 Optical Signal-to-Noise Ratio
• The OSNR is independent of data format, pulse shape, or
optical filter bandwidth. It is the ratio of the net signal power
Psignal to the net noise power Pnoise.
Net signal power
OSNR =
Net noise power
• OSNR gives the information of quality of signal after
amplification also, because it is the ratio of signal and noise
power, and both will get amplified by same factor.

Psignal Bmeas
OSNR (dB) =10log  10log
Pnoise Bref
• Bmeas is noise equivalent measurement BW of instrument
• Bref is Spectral BW
ASE Noise
• The own noise of optical
amplifier is called as
Amplified spontaneous
(ASE) noise.
• ASE is a severe problem
in system design. As the
number of amplifier
stages increases, noise
gets accumulated
Power Penalties:
• There are a number of phenomena that occur within an
optical transmission system that can be compensated by
increasing the power budget.
• In each case the amount of additional power required to
overcome the problem is termed “power penalty”.
• In all communications products and in most pre-planned
systems the effects of power penalties are already included
by means of adjustment of the receiver sensitivity.
• The three most important issues / sources of power
penalties for digital systems are:
1. System Noise
2. Effect of Dispersion (ISI) & Nonlinearities
3. Extinction Ratio
Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR):

• The quality of any received signal in any communication system is largely

determined by the ratio of the signal power to the noise power (SNR).
• The SNR is a function of both the amount of noise and the signal power.
• One can always improve the SNR by increasing the signal power.
• When noise is present the amount of increase in signal power necessary
to compensate for the noise and produce the same SNR at the output
can be expressed as an amount of power increase in decibels.
• This is the power penalty due to System Noise.
• In simple systems most of the noise comes from within the receiver itself
and so is usually compensated for by an adjustment of the receiver
sensitivity specification.
• In complex systems with EDFAs, ASE noise becomes important and to
compensate we include in power level planning throughout the system.
Effect Of Dispersion (ISI):

• Dispersion causes bits to merge into one another on the link.

• When this becomes severe it will prevent successful link

operation but at lower levels of severity, dispersion adds noise
to the signal.

• We can compensate for this by increasing the signal power

level and thus for certain levels of dispersion we can
nominate a system power budget (allowance) to compensate.
Extinction Ratio:
• If a zero bit is represented by a finite power level rather than a
true complete absence of power then the difference between the
power level of a 1-bit and that of a 0-bit is narrowed.
• The power level of the 0-bit becomes the noise floor of every 1-bit.
• The receiver decision point has to be higher and therefore there is
an increased probability of error.
• This can be compensated for by an increase in available power
level at the receiver.
• An extinction ratio of 10 dB incurs a power penalty (in either a pin-
diode receiver or an APD) of about 1 dB over what it would have
been with a truly zero value for a 0-bit.
• An extinction ratio of 3 dB causes a power penalty of 5 dB in a
pin-diode receiver and 7 dB in an APD.