Record-Breaking 240 Gbaud On-Off Keying Silicon Photonics Transmitter for Short-Reach Applications
On the way to 1.6T, the employment of silicon photonics (SiP) promises advantages in mass production of high-performance data center interconnects. SiP is a key technology for future 800 Gbps and 1.6 Tbps solutions to meet the ever-increasing demands. The 800G pluggable multi-source agreement (MSA) suggests that intensity-modulated direct-detection (IM/DD) is the most sustainable way forward.
In a joint effort of Keysight and Riga Technical University the potential of SiP as a key enabler for high-baud rate communication was proved with a breath-taking record.
Together we demonstrated a record 240 Gbaud on-off keying (OOK) and 150 Gbaud 4-level pulse amplitude (PAM4) modulation SiP Mach-Zehnder-modulator-based transmitter with performance below the 6.25% overhead hard-decision forward-error-correction (FEC) threshold. They also showed a 160 Gbaud on-off keying SiP ring-resonance-modulator-based transmitter.
The team from the Riga Technical University was confident from the beginning that they could achieve the record. We, from Keysight helped them with an M8199B 256 GSa/s arbitrary waveform generator prototype and the UXR1104A 110 GHz Infiniium UXR-Series oscilloscope to prove it.
Now Professor Oskars Ozoliņš from the Riga Technical University could present his amazing results on the IEEE SiPhotonics Conference in Arlington/Virginia.
Professor Oskars Ozoliņš from the Riga Technical University presenting his record-braking results at the IEEE SiPhotonics Conference
“It was my pleasure to present the work at this post-deadline session of the Silicon Photonics conference. Great that together with Keysight we can push the limits of high baud rate communication!”
Keysight supported the team already in a world record just recently: they demonstrated the first 310 Gbaud rates using OOK modulation and 160 Gbaud rates using PAM6 modulation using amplification-free, externally modulated laser optical links that reduce overall power consumption. Read more about it here.