M8290A Optical Modulation and High-Speed Digitizer Test Solution

Keysight Technologies

M8290A Optical Modulation Analyzer and High-Speed Digitizer Test Solution

Data Sheet 

M8290A Modular Coherent Test Solution

Optical coherent transmission technology, initially used in long-haul transmission, is evolving into metro networks and expanding to data center interconnects. Each product generation increases transmission speed by moving to higher symbol rates and higher-order QAM constellations. Today’s 100G systems that use quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) at 32 GBd will evolve to 400G by doubling both the bits per symbol and the symbol rate; i.e., using 16-state quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) at 64 GBd. At the same time, the industry’s target is to reduce size, cost, and power consumption of the transceiver hardware. Higher complexity transmission schemes, combined with new challenges that result from dense electronic and photonic integration, lead to tighter requirements and lower performance margins for all components as well as the assembled transceivers. Increasing data throughput while reducing size, cost and power consumption requires rigorous testing during development, NPI, and production phases.

The M8290A rack-mountable modular coherent test system for the AXIe platform addresses the 400G speed class in a significantly narrower form factor and a more attractive price point than today’s oscilloscope-based solutions for this speed class. For coherent transmitter and receiver testing, the M8292A compact optical modulation analyzer and M8296A high-speed digitizer fill the gap between the portable N4392A integrated optical modulation analyzer for 100G and the real-time oscilloscope-based N4391A optical modulation analyzer supporting speed classes of 400G, 600G and 1 Terabit per second.

The compact and modular approach makes the M8290A optical modulation analyzer and highspeed digitizer test solution an ideal system for coherent transmitter signal qualification for EVM and related parameters as well as for coherent optical device characterization including assemblies like ICR, PMQ, CDM, IC-TROSA or ACO. The modular concept addresses the needs of development teams, new product introduction groups and production test engineers looking for affordable test equipment for 400G. The M8290A optical modulation analyzer and high-speed digitizer test solution provides a combination of compactness, affordability and performance that cannot be achieved with current oscilloscope-based solutions in this speed class.

In the M8290A system configuration, the M8292A optical modulation analyzer module (a 2-slot AXIe module) and a 4-channel single-slot electrical digitizer module are available, both operating at 92 GSa/s sampling rate. A 5-slot AXIe chassis has room to plug in an additional electrical source module like the M8195A or M8196A arbitrary waveform generator. The modular architecture enables stimulus and analyzer capabilities in one mainframe to form a very compact stimulus-response test solution at an unmatched price/performance level.

Test Solution for Coherent Optical Transmit & Receive Devices

Coherent optical devices such as dual-polarization IQ modulators and intradyne coherent receivers need to be tested in their different development stages as well as qualified by the system integrators. The optionally available coherent optical device test software provides a turn-key solution for the characterization of these devices. One user interface provides control of all instruments through a single software package. None of the tests requires reconnecting the DUT, saving test time and reducing the uncertainty introduced by connecting and reconnecting the device. The coherent optical device test license provides:

• S21 magnitude and phase responses
• IQ skew, XY skew

The setup can be customized in three different ways for transmit device testing, receive device testing and sequential testing of both, transmit and receive devices. Furthermore, it can be extended to perform system-level tests as well as wavelength and power calibration of the laser.