524
2, JANUARY 15, 2019
Single-Carrier and Multi-Carrier 400 Gbps
Transmission With Multi-Rate Multi-Format
Real-Time Transceiver Prototypes
Yann Loussouarn, Erwan Pincemin , Serge Gauthier, Yang Chen, Wushuang Yuan, Yang Hong,
Xiong Wei, and Zhang Dejiang
(Top-Scored Paper)
Abstract—New customer usages such as on-demand high-
definition videos, business analytics, and cloud services stress
more and more optical transport networks. While 100 Gbps WDM
systems have been widely adopted by operators to cope with the
capacity growth of the past 6–7 years, a new generation of the op-
tical transmission system is required to respond to the exponential
traffic demands coming from mobile, fixed, and data center net-
works. Equipment manufacturers recently planned to enhance to
400 Gbps the data rate carried by WDM channels to meet this ever-
increasing traffic requirement. Various trends are in competition
to achieve this objective. Single-carrier and multi-carrier tech-
niques operating at different symbol rates (i.e., 32, 45, >60 Gbaud)
and with diverse modulation formats (DP-QPSK, DP-8QAM,
DP-16QAM) are proposed depending on whether transmission
distance, spectral efficiency, or cost is the predominant driver. In
this paper, we investigate the potential of these various 400 Gbps
solutions by using real-time transceiver prototypes generating
32/64 Gbaud DP-QPSK, 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM, 32/61 Gbaud DP-
16QAM formats over various fiber types (i.e., G.652, G.654, G.655
fibers). In particular, we demonstrate 400 Gbps WDM transmis-
sion with 61 Gbaud DP-16QAM channels using bandwidth-limited
DAC/ADC (i.e., <15 GHz) and real-time signal processing based
on maximum likelihood sequence estimation equalization that
mitigates bandwidth limitations. We conclude by analyzing
the fiber non-linearity robustness of the 400 Gbps real-time
transceivers under test thanks to the Gaussian noise model that
permits to extract the ANL parameter and quantify non-linear
interference affecting optical channels after fiber propagation.
Index Terms—Coherent communications, fiber optics and opti-
cal communications, quaternary amplitude modulation, 400 Gbps
WDM transmission.
Manuscript received June 28, 2018; revised September 4, 2018; accepted
September 25, 2018. Date of publication October 4, 2018; date of current
version February 20, 2019. (Corresponding author: Erwan Pincemin.)
Y. Loussouarn, E. Pincemin, and S. Gauthier are with Orange Labs,
Lannion 22300, France (e-mail:, yann.loussouarn@orange.com; erwan.
pincemin@orange.com; serge.gautier@orange.com).
Y. Chen, W. Yuan, Y. Hong, X. Wei, and Z. Dejiang are with Huawei Tech-
nologies Co., Ltd. Bantian, Shenzhen 518129, China (e-mail:,rover.yangchen@
huawei.com; wushuangyuan@huawei.com; yanghong@huawei.com; xiong-
wei@huawei.com; zhangdejiang@huawei.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JLT.2018.2874106
0733-8724 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 37, NO.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE exponential rise of data traffic driven by the explo-
T sion of bandwidth-hungry services, such as high-definition
on-demand videos, on-line business analytics, and cloud-based
applications brings an ever-increasing pressure on optical trans-
port networks that interconnect people [1]–[3]. To respond to
this exponential traffic demands while ensuring a good quality of
service with reasonable latency, content and service providers
multiply the number of data centers (DC), which are located
closer and closer to the customers. The up-coming development
of 5G mobile networks, the emergence of internet of things
or fog computing combined with the trend for virtualization
of network functions encourage these distributed designs for
DCs both in the core and metro/regional networks [4], [5]. The
100 Gbps wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems
[6]–[9], widely adopted by operators in the 2010’s years, are
not sufficient any more to carry the generated traffic. Equipment
manufacturers decided thus to work on a new generation of sys-
tems operating at 400 Gbps per channel [10]–[15], [42]–[44].
They have to meet a triple objective assigned by telcos to lower
the bit/s/km cost, to reduce the bit/s energy consumption and to
keep to a reasonable level the transmission performance. Dual-
carrier 32 Gbaud dual-polarization (DP) 16-array quadrature
amplitude modulation (16QAM) was first proposed [10]–[15],
[42]–[44]. The data rate of 400 Gbps is obtained thanks to two
sub-carriers (SC) at 200 Gbps using 16QAM while keeping the
symbol rate of existing 100 Gbps transceivers at 32 Gbaud. The
growth by a factor of two of the spectral efficiency is done at
the expense of a 7-dB degradation of the optical signal-to-noise
ratio (OSNR) that does not really constitute a problem in the
context of metro/regional applications but is more problematic
for long-haul transport. The implementation of 2 × 200-Gbps
super-channel also requires duplicating the equipments into the
transponder that is not really cheap for low-cost and short-reach
applications [16]. Thus, research laboratories have looked for
enhancing the QAM order [17], [18], the symbol-rate [19], or
both, in order to use only one carrier to transport 400 Gbps.
While single-carrier transmission with high-order QAM
provides higher spectral efficiency, single-carrier with low-
order QAM and high symbol-rate achieves higher maximum
LOUSSOUARN et al.: SINGLE-CARRIER AND MULTI-CARRIER 400 GBPS TRANSMISSION
transmission distance. Single-carrier > 60 Gbaud DP-16QAM
have thus been proposed to address 400 G-ZR [16] application
with typical maximum reach of 80–120 km. Recently, multi-
rate multi-format transceivers [13], [20], [42]–[44] also appear
to address with one flexible transponder all the applications (i.e.,
data-center interconnects, metro/regional, long-haul, ultra-long-
haul). In this context, 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM [21] and 64 Gbaud
DP-QPSK [12] formats were proposed to deal with the longest
optical links.
In this paper, we report various experiments performed
these past 3 years in which we demonstrated successful
single- and multi-carrier 400 Gbps transmission with multi-rate
multi-format real-time transceiver prototypes. In the first exper-
iment reported in [14], we showed uncompensated error-free
transmission of 400 Gbps real-time coherent dual-carrier DP-
16QAM over 1000 km (resp. 500 km) of G.652 (resp. G.655)
fiber [22], [23] using purely Erbium-doped fiber amplification
(EDFA). By considering realistic industrial margins of ∼2 dB
for fiber/system aging and time-varying transmission effects,
the transmission distance was reduced to 500 km (resp. 300 km)
over G.652 (resp. G.655) fiber. The two 200 Gbps SCs which
constituted the 400 Gbps super-channel were Nyquist-filtered,
spaced by 37.5 GHz and occupied a total bandwidth of 75 GHz
resulting in a net spectral efficiency of 5.33 bit/s/Hz. The bit
error ratio (BER) and optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR)
corresponding to the threshold of the soft-decision forward
error correction (SD-FEC) code [24] implemented in this first
generation of 400 Gbps WDM interface was ∼2.4 × 10−2 and
∼19.4 dB in back-to-back, respectively. In a second experiment
reported in [25], we demonstrated 400 Gbps metro WDM trans-
mission with single-carrier 61 Gbaud DP-16QAM channels
using bandwidth-limited (i.e., < 15 GHz) digital-to-analog and
analog-to-digital converters (DAC/ADC) and real-time signal
processing based on maximum likelihood sequence estimation
(MLSE) [26], [27] equalization that mitigates bandwidth limi-
tations of digital/analog components. The 400 Gbps transceiver
prototypes were evaluated over optical lines equipped with
various fiber types and EDFA only. Error-free transmission
was achieved after 200 km, 300 km and 500 km of G.655,
G.652, and G.654 super-large area and ultra-low loss [28]
fibers, respectively, with 75-GHz channel spacing between the
400 Gbps channels. The net spectral efficiency obtained was
5.33 bit/s/Hz, i.e exactly the same value than the one obtained
in the first experiment [14]. In a last set of experiments carried
out in July-August 2017 for the special need of this manuscript,
we used a multi-rate multi-format real-time transceiver, which
was able to deliver 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK, 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK
and 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM with a net spectral efficiency of
2.66 bit/s/Hz, 2.66 bit/s/Hz and 3.2 bit/s/Hz, respectively. After
propagation over 2000 km of G.652 fiber (the maximum length
of our lab test-bed), we measured OSNR margins with respect
to the SD-FEC threshold of ∼8.2 dB, ∼4.2 dB, ∼1.8 dB for
quadruple-carrier 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK, dual-carrier 64 Gbaud
DP-QPSK and dual-carrier 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM, respectively.
More than the novelty of the presented transmission techniques,
our objective here was to compare exactly in the same exper-
imental conditions all the 400 Gbps solutions used by telcos in
their transport networks. Finally, owing to the big volume of data
525
accumulated, we analyzed the fiber non-linear robustness of the
modulation formats under test thanks to the Gaussian noise (GN)
model [29]–[35], [41] that permits to extract the ANL parameter
and quantify non-linear interference affecting optical channels.
II. MULTI-RATE MULTI-FORMAT 400 GBPS
SOLUTIONS UNDER TEST
Table I presents the main features of the various 400 Gbps
multi-rate multi-format transceivers under test. The follow-
ing modulation formats DP-QPSK, DP-8QAM, DP-16QAM
were implemented at symbol rates of 32/64 Gbaud for QPSK,
45 Gbaud for 8QAM, and 32/61 Gbaud for 16QAM. It means
that reaching 400 Gbps of net data rate supposes to use:
r 4 SCs spaced by 37.5 GHz with 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK,
r 2 SCs spaced by 37.5 GHz with 32 Gbaud DP-16QAM,
r 2 SCs spaced by 62.5 GHz with 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM,
r 2 SCs spaced by 75 GHz with 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK,
r 1 SC covering a 75-GHz spectral slot with 61 Gbaud DP-
16QAM.
The SCs experienced a root-raised cosine (RRC) Nyquist fil-
tering both at the transmitter and receiver side with a roll-off
factor of ∼0.1 that involved a quasi-rectangular spectrum shape,
as schematically shown in the Table I. The SD-FEC based on
low-density-parity-check (LDPC) convolutional codes had 20%
overhead resulting in an overall data-rate of 2 × 256 Gbps,
i.e., 512 Gbps overall, except for 61 Gbaud DP-16QAM that
used a LDPC-based SD-FEC with 11% overhead leading to
an overall data-rate of 488 Gbps. The 400 Gbps single- and
multi-carrier channels were generated by real-time transpon-
der line card hosted in the Huawei OSN 9800 equipment [36].
The head-end equipments were configured and monitored using
the Huawei iManager Unified Network Management System
(U2000) [36].
III. DUAL-CARRIER 32 GBAUD DP-16QAM TRANSMISSION
We report in this section experiments performed in end 2014
and described in [14] that showed error-free transmission of
400 Gbps real-time coherent dual-carrier DP-16QAM [15] over
uncompensated G.652 and G.655 fiber line. It was the first
time that ∼1000 km transmission distance over G.652 fiber and
∼500 km over G.655 fiber with EDFA only were demonstrated
with such real-time transceiver prototypes.
The experimental test-bed is depicted in Fig. 1. We generated
one 400 Gbps dual-carrier DP-16QAM super-channel operating
at 32 Gbaud at the central wavelength of 1549.91 nm, and
58 other channels ranging from 1533.86 nm to 1557.36 nm
on the 50 GHz ITU grid and modulated at 100 Gbps by
the DP-QPSK format. As shown in Fig. 1a), the 400 Gbps
dual-carrier DP-16QAM signal was constituted of two 0.1-
RRC Nyquist-filtered 200 Gbps SCs at 1549.76 nm and
1550.06 nm spaced by 37.5 GHz. A guard-band was inserted
between the 400 Gbps signal and each of its two 100 Gbps
neighbors resulting in a channel spacing of 56.25 GHz with
these last ones. The 400 Gbps Nyquist-WDM super-channel
was generated by a real-time transponder prototype. The
SD-FEC implemented over the board was based on LDPC
convolutional codes, had 20% overhead and a net coding gain
526
TABLE I
MAIN FEATURES FOR THE MODULATION FORMATS UNDER TEST
of 11.3 dB, and resulted in a data-rate of 256 Gbps per SC.
The 2 × 200 Gbps transceiver line card were connected to
an optical transport network (OTN) cross-connect that fed
2 × 100 GbE/OTU4 and 16 × 10 GbE/OTU2/OTU2e/FC1200
client interfaces, themselves connected to BER testers (BERT)
for long-duration BER measurements. At the transmitter side,
the two 200 Gbps SCs were combined together by means of a
flexgrid wavelength selective switch (WSS) and coupled with
the previously mentioned 58 DP-QPSK channels at 100 Gbps
(128 Gbps with the FEC overhead). The resulting WDM
signal spectrum recorded at the transmitter side is shown in
Fig. 1b).
The uncompensated 1000-km transmission line was consti-
tuted of ten 100-km spans of G.652 [22] or G.655 fiber [23],
whose losses were compensated by single-stage EDFA with
20-dB gain and 4.5-dB noise figure. These fibers were the most
deployed worldwide over the legacy infrastructures of operators.
A dynamic gain equalizer (DGE) was inserted in the middle of
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 37, NO. 2, JANUARY 15, 2019
the transmission line in order to flatten the multiplex power. The
WDM signal spectrum recovered after 1000-km of G.652 fiber
is shown in Fig. 1c).
At the receiver side, the 400 Gbps dual-carrier DP-16QAM
super-channel at 1549.91 nm was extracted by a 100-GHz band-
width flat-top optical band-pass filter (OBPF) and detected by
the real-time receiver under study. The two 200 Gbps SCs
were simultaneously sent to each of the two 200 Gbps ports
of the transponder line card by means of a splitter, and sep-
arated by the coherent receivers embedded into the interface.
After analogue-to-digital conversion and real-time digital sig-
nal processing (DSP), the two 200 Gbps SCs were processed by
the OTN cross-connect and transferred to the BERTs through
the previously described client interfaces. DSP consisted in
frequency-domain equalization for chromatic dispersion (CD)
compensation, 2 × 2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)
time-domain equalization for polarization separation and polar-
ization mode dispersion (PMD) mitigation, timing and carrier
LOUSSOUARN et al.: SINGLE-CARRIER AND MULTI-CARRIER 400 GBPS TRANSMISSION 527

Fig. 1. Set-up of the 10 × 100-km transmission test-bed, with the real-time coherent dual-carrier DP-16QAM transmitter/receiver at 1549.91 nm, the 58
DP-QPSK channels at 100 Gbps ranged from 1533.86 nm to 1557.36 nm, the 10 × 100-km uncompensated G.652 or G.655 fiber line, the OTN cross-connect
and the 2 × 100 GbE/OTU4 and 16 × 10GbE/OTU2/OTU2e/FC1200 client interfaces connected to the BERTs. In insets, the spectrum of the 400 Gbps N-WDM
super-channel at the transmitter side (a), the spectra of the 59 channels at the transmitter (b) and receiver side after 1000-km of transmission over the G652
fiber (c).

Fig. 2. BER vs. OSNR (in 0.1 nm) in BtB for 128 Gbps DP-QPSK and 2 × 256 Gbps N-WDM DP-16QAM formats. BER vs. OSNR points at the optimum span
input power per channel for 500 km, 600 km, 700 km, 800 km, 900 km and 1000 km of transmission over G.652 fiber (a), and for 300 km, 400 km and 500 km of
transmission over G.655 fiber (b) are also reported for the 400 Gbps real-time coherent N-WDM DP-16QAM interface.

phase recovery, cycle slip detection and correction, and FEC
decoding. DSP was able to compensate up to 30-ps PMD and
50000-ps/nm CD.
Bit-error rates (BER) versus optical signal-to-noise ratios
(OSNR) are firstly plotted on Fig. 2 in back-to-back (BtB)
for the 400 Gbps real-time coherent dual-carrier DP-16QAM
transceivers under test, and for our 100 Gbps DP-QPSK refer-
ence interface. Indeed, one of the 58 WDM channels operating
at 100 Gbps is emitted by a 128 Gbps real-time coherent DP-
QPSK transceiver, equipped with a 20% overhead FEC (con-
stituted by the concatenation of a 13% LDPC FEC with a 7%
hard-decision FEC). At 400 Gbps, the FEC threshold is reached
for a BER ∼ 2.4 × 10−2 and an OSNR (in 0.1 nm) of ∼19.4 dB.
At 100 Gbps, the reference interface reaches its FEC threshold
for an OSNR of ∼12.5 dB. There is thus ∼7 dB of OSNR differ-
ence at the FEC threshold between our two real-time 100 Gbps
and 400 Gbps coherent interfaces, as predicted by theory. Note
also that at the opposite side of the 400 Gbps sensitivity curve
an error floor is observed for high OSNRs (due to hardware
limitations of DACs/ADCs used).
The performance of the 400 Gbps real-time coherent dual-
carrier DP-16QAM transceivers is secondly evaluated over the
previously described G.652/G.655 fiber transmission test-bed.
BERs as a function of the span input powers per channel
528
Fig. 3. BER vs. span input power per channel after 500 km, 600 km, 700 km, 800 km, 900 km and 1000 km of transmission over G.652 fiber (a), and after
300 km, 400 km and 500 km of transmission over G.655 fiber (b) for the 400 Gbps real-time coherent N-WDM DP-16QAM interface.
(PINSPAN /channel) are plotted for various transmission distances
over both G.652 (Fig. 3a) and G.655 (Fig. 3b) fibers. Over
G.652 fiber, the optimum span input power decreases from
0 dBm per channel at 500 km to −0.5 dBm per channel at
1000 km. A long-duration measurement of 60 hours without
errors has been successfully achieved over the 100 GbE/OTU4
and 10 GbE/OTU2/OTU2e/FC1200 client flows after 1000 km.
Over G.655 fiber, the optimum span input power decreases from
−1 dBm per channel at 300 km to −1.5 dBm per channel at
500 km. A long-duration error-free transmission of 60 hours has
also been performed over the G.655 fiber after 500 km. Inter-
estingly and as expected, the best performance is obtained over
the G.652 fiber, with a maximum transmission distance two-
fold higher (1000 km) than that obtained over the G.655 fiber
(500 km), demonstrating a better robustness of G.652 fiber to
non-linear effects. Due to its larger chromatic dispersion which
fully decorrelates the interacting signals and limits the impact
of cross-phase modulation and four-wave mixing, G.652 fiber
turns out to be superior to G.655 fiber.
The optimum of each BER versus P INSPAN /channel curves
is now reported over the BER versus OSNR graphs of Fig. 2
for the various transmission distances and for the two fibers
under test. The OSNR penalty engendered by the transmission
over 1000 km of G.652 fiber is ∼2.2 dB. Even if the BER is
steady and the post-FEC BER is better than 1 × 10−15 after
1000 km, the fibre/system aging and time-varying transmission
effects (polarization-dependant loss, cross-polarization modu-
lation, . . . ) oblige operators to take industrial margins over the
OSNR in order to make the system robust during its lifetime (i.e.,
6–7 years). Provisioning ∼2 dB of industrial OSNR margins is
usual and ensures that the WDM transmission system will be
operational during its life. Fig. 2a shows that the provisioned
2-dB industrial margins oblige to reduce the maximum trans-
mission distance of the 400 Gbps Nyquist-WDM (N-WDM)
super-channel from 1000 km to 500 km. By considering now
G.655 fiber, the OSNR penalty engendered by the transmission
over 500 km is ∼1.6 dB. The previously introduced 2 dB in-
dustrial margins shorten the maximum transmission distance of
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 37, NO. 2, JANUARY 15, 2019
the system to 300 km. Nonetheless, we obtained the remarkable
result that error-free transmission can be achieved over 1000 km
(resp. 500 km) of G.652 (resp. G.655) fiber with the 400 Gbps
real-time coherent interface under test, while other industrial
400 Gbps WDM interfaces evaluated at the moment of our ex-
periment (i.e., in end 2014) in field trials using purely EDFA
amplification did not reach more than ∼500 km [10], [15], [35].
IV. SINGLE-CARRIER 61 GBAUD DP-16QAM TRANSMISSION
After having successfully evaluated 400 Gbps real-time
coherent dual-carrier N-WDM DP-16QAM transceivers over
long-haul distances (several hundreds of kilometers), we stud-
ied another category of 400 Gbps WDM interface based on
single-carrier high baud rate technique [25]–[27]. This family of
single-carrier 400 Gbps transceivers targets another class of ap-
plications for which the transmission reach is short (several tens
of kilometers) and the cost limitation is crucial. Single-carrier
> 60 Gbaud DP-16QAM has been recently chosen by the Opical
Internetworking Forum (OIF) to address 400 G-ZR application
[16] which aims for low-cost 400 Gbps WDM transmission
with typical reaches of 80–120 km. Increasing the data-rate to
400 Gbps while keeping the number of SCs to one supposes
to enhance the QAM order [17], [18], the symbol-rate [19], or
both. While single-carrier transmission with high-order QAM
provides higher spectral efficiency, single-carrier with low-order
QAM and high symbol-rate achieves higher maximum transmis-
sion distance. Thus, we demonstrated in [26] 400 Gbps metro
WDM transmission with three single-carrier (SC) 61 Gbaud
DP-16QAM channels using bandwidth-limited DAC/ADC
(< 15 GHz) and real-time signal processing based on MLSE
equalization that mitigated bandwidth limitations of digital/
analogue components. The 400 Gbps transponder prototypes
were evaluated over various fiber types with Erbium-doped fiber
amplifiers (EDFA) only.
The experimental transmission test-bed is depicted in Fig. 4.
The WDM transmitter comprised three 400 Gbps SC-DP-
16QAM channels at 1552.3 nm, 1552.9 nm and 1553.5 nm
LOUSSOUARN et al.: SINGLE-CARRIER AND MULTI-CARRIER 400 GBPS TRANSMISSION 529

Fig. 4. Set-up of the transmission test-bed, with the three real-time SC-DP-16QAM transceivers at 400 Gbps, the 55 DP-QPSK channels at 100 Gbps, and the 5
× 100-km uncompensated fiber line, with also represented the spectra of the three 400 Gbps SC-DP-16QAM channels at the transmitter side for various channel
spacings (a), the spectra of the 58 channels at 400 Gbps and 100 Gbps before (b) and after (c) propagation over the 500-km of G.654 fiber, and a zoom over the
WDM multiplex area where are packed the three 400 Gbps SC-DP-16QAM channels (d).

and 55 other 100 Gbps DP-QPSK wavelengths ranged from
1533.9 nm to 1557.4 nm on the 50 GHz ITU grid. As shown in
Fig. 4, the spectrum of each 400 Gbps channel did not exceed
∼60 GHz enabling a channel spacing of 75 GHz. Due to the
use of bandwidth-limited DAC (< 15 GHz, 85 GSaps, ENOB =
6/5 bits @ 1/20 GHz), a specific real-time digital signal process-
ing (DSP) was implemented at the transmitter side. A nonlinear
look up table (NL-LUT) compensated both the nonlinear re-
sponse of optoelectronic devices embedded into the transceiver
and the bit-pattern-dependent phase fluctuations [27]. A root-
raised cosine Nyquist filtering with a roll-off factor of 0.1 was
applied before spectral pre-emphasis boosted high-frequency
signal components.
The three 400 Gbps SC-DP-16QAM channels were each gen-
erated by a real-time high-speed WDM interface prototype. The
soft-decision FEC (SD-FEC) based on LDPC convolutional
codes [24] had 11% overhead, a pre-FEC BER threshold of
1 × 10−2 , and a net coding gain of 10.5 dB, resulting in an
overall data-rate of 488 Gbps. The frequency transfer function
of the SC-DP-16QAM transmitter is depicted in Fig. 5a). The
WDM multiplex spectrum recorded at the transmitter side is
shown in Fig. 4b). The spectrum area where are packed the
three 400 Gbps channels is represented in Fig. 4d).
The uncompensated 500-km transmission line was consti-
tuted of five 100-km spans of G.652 [22], G.655 [23] and
G.654 super-large area and ultra-low loss (i.e. Corning Vascade
EX2000 [29]) fibers. The span losses (20 dB for G.652 fiber,
21 dB for G.655 fiber, 17 dB for G.654 fiber) were compensated
by single-stage EDFAs with 4.5-dB noise figure. While G.652
and G.655 fibers represent the quasi-totality of fibers deployed
worldwide over the legacy infrastructures of operators, the
super-large-area (112 μm²) and ultra-low-loss (0.165 dB/km)
fiber type is a promising solution to extend the maximum trans-
mission reach of ultra-high bit-rate WDM systems operating at
high symbol-rate and/or with high-order QAM. The signal spec-
trum recovered after 500-km of G.654 fiber is shown in Fig. 4c).
At the receiver side, the 400 Gbps SC-DP-16QAM chan-
nel at 1552.9 nm (the central one) was extracted by a 75-GHz
bandwidth flat-top optical band-pass filter (OBPF) and sent to
the receiver by an optical switch. Advanced real-time digital
signal processing (DSP), performed in 28-nm CMOS-ASIC
and depicted in Fig. 5b), was achieved after signal sampling
by the ADCs (<15 GHz, 85 GSaps, ENOB = 6/5 bits @
1/20 GHz). It consisted in signal down-sampling, re-timing,
frequency-domain equalization (FDEQ), sample alignment fil-
tering (SAF), MIMO-based time-domain equalization (TDEQ),
timing recovery (TR), carrier phase recovery (CR), cycle slip
detection and correction (CSDC), MLSE-based narrow filter-
ing compensation (NFC), and FEC decoding [25]–[27], [38]–
[40]. The NFC algorithm (of particular interest here) imple-
mented a forward-only trellis-based equalization that applied
reduced-state techniques to make the equalizer efficient for
530
Fig. 5. S21 transfer function of the 61 Gbaud SC-DP-16QAM transmitter under test (a), DSP blocks implemented in the 61 Gbaud CMOS ASIC (b).
high-order QAM [27], [28]. It applied a low-complexity inter-
symbol interference estimator that used a set of pilots to de-
termine the post-filter coefficients, based on Levinson-Durbin
recursions. Valid transitions of the sequence estimation trellis
were defined as the ones that had the previous state of the cur-
rent trellis stage, provided that the current state of the previous
trellis stage was not fully connected and thus required much
fewer computations. Furthermore, use of novel reduced state
techniques implied that only M out of the N states at a trellis
stage were propagated. For 16-QAM with a maximum chan-
nel memory of two, only eight out of the 16 possible states
were propagated thanks to a selective state exploration. This
technique is unique and critical for implementing NFC in the
present state-of-art CMOS ASIC.
Bit-error rates (BER) versus optical signal-to-noise ratios
(OSNR) are firstly plotted in back-to-back (BtB) in Fig. 6b).
The FEC threshold is reached for a BER = 1.0 × 10−2 and an
OSNR in 0.1 nm of ∼25.6 dB. This is ∼6.2 dB away from the
OSNR measured at the FEC threshold (∼19.4 dB @ BER = 2.4
× 10−2 ) for the 400 Gbps dual-carrier DP-16QAM operating at
32 Gbaud of Section III. At the opposite side of the sensitivity
curve, an error floor (at a BER = 2.2 × 10−3 ) is observed for
high OSNRs, showing that the hardware limitations and imper-
fections are not totally mitigated by our specific and advanced
DSP.
The performance of the 400 Gbps SC-DP-16QAM interfaces
is then evaluated over the previously described G.652, G.655 and
G.654 fiber-based transmission test-bed. BERs as a function of
the span input powers per channel (Pin / Channel) are plotted
in Fig. 6a) for 200 km (G.655 fiber), 300 km (G.652 fiber) and
500 km (G.654 fiber). It can be observed that the BER obtained
for each of these three distances at the optimum span input power
is just below the FEC threshold. It is confirmed by successful
long-duration measurements of 12 hours ensuring error-free op-
eration. The optimum span input power over G.652 and G.654
fibers (∼2.5 dBm) is 1.5 dB higher than the one obtained over
G.655 fiber (∼1 dBm). As expected, the best performance is
obtained over G.654 fiber, demonstrating the crucial influence
of a large effective area, a high level of chromatic dispersion
and a low level of losses to limit the impact of fiber nonlinear
effects. The optimum of each BER versus Pin / Channel curves
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 37, NO. 2, JANUARY 15, 2019
is also reported over the BER versus OSNR graphs of Fig. 6b),
for the already mentioned transmission distances but also for
lower reaches. The superiority of G.654 fiber which involves
higher OSNR and better BER for a given transmission reach is
confirmed.
Finally, in order to evaluate the capability of 400 Gbps SC-
DP-16QAM to operate at higher spectral efficiency, the chan-
nel spacing is varied from 62.5 GHz to 100 GHz per step
of 12.5 GHz both in BtB (Fig. 7a) and after transmission
(Fig. 7b). The corresponding spectra at the transmitter side are
shown in Fig. 4a). The BER versus OSNR curves are superim-
posed in BtB for 100 GHz, 87.5 GHz and 75 GHz, while the
62.5-GHz spacing clearly involves a 2.5-dB OSNR penalty at
the FEC threshold and a degraded error-floor (BER = 5.5 ×
10−3 ). This trend is confirmed after transmission over 100 km,
200 km and 300 km of G.652 fiber at the optimum span input
power per channel. Channel spacing of 62.5 GHz results in too
much spectral crosstalk and in enhanced cross-phase modula-
tion and four-wave mixing.
These experiments showed the capability of 400 Gbps SC-
DP-16QAM to address data-center interconnects applications.
V. MULTI-RATE MULTI-FORMAT REAL-TIME TRANSCEIVER
In this last set of experiments carried out for the special
need of this manuscript, we used a now commercially available
multi-rate multi-format real-time transceiver [13], [42]–[44],
which was able to deliver 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK, 45 Gbaud DP-
8QAM [21] 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK [13], [42]–[44] and 32 Gbaud
DP-16QAM [10], [14], [15] with a net spectral efficiency of
2.66 bit/s/Hz, 3.2 bit/s/Hz, 2.66 bit/s/Hz and 5.33 bit/s/Hz re-
spectively. Our objective was to compare exactly in the same
experimental conditions all the 400 Gbps solutions used by tel-
cos in their transport networks and to feed the Gaussian noise
model.
The experimental set-up used to evaluate the performance
of the various 400 Gbps modulation techniques under study is
described in Fig. 8. Thanks to the transceivers that we had in
the lab, we were able to generate quadruple-carrier DP-QPSK at
32 Gbaud, dual-carrier DP-8QAM at 45 Gbaud, dual-carrier DP-
QPSK at 64 Gbaud, and dual-carrier DP-16QAM at 32 Gbaud.
LOUSSOUARN et al.: SINGLE-CARRIER AND MULTI-CARRIER 400 GBPS TRANSMISSION 531

Fig. 6. BER versus span input power per 400 Gbps SC-DP-16QAM channel after 200 km, 300 km and 500 km of G.655, G.652 and G.654 fibers, respectively
(a), BER versus OSNR (in 0.1 nm) in BtB and after transmission over the G.655, G.652 and G.654 fibers (b).

Fig. 7. BER versus OSNR (in 0.1 nm) in BtB for 62.5 GHz, 75 GHz, 87.5 GHz and 100 GHz channel spacing (a), BER versus channel spacing after 100 km,
200 km and 300 km of transmission over G.652 fiber at the optimum span input power per channel (b).

Fig. 8. Set-up of the transmission test-bed with the spectrum of the four modulation formats under test: 4 × 100G DP-QPSK @ 32 GBaud (a), 2 × 200G
DP-8QAM @ 45 Gbaud (b), 2 × 200G DP-64QAM @ 64 Gbaud (c), 2 × 200G DP-16QAM @ 32 Gbaud (d).
532
Fig. 9. BER versus OSNR (in 0.1 nm) in BtB and after transmission over the G.652 fiber line described in Fig. 8 for the 4 × 100G DP-QPSK @ 32 Gbaud, 2 ×
200G DP-8QAM @ 45 Gbaud, 2 × 200G DP-QPSK @ 64 Gbaud, 2 × 200G DP-16QAM @ 32 Gbaud.
These transceivers were combined together by a coupler in or-
der to produce the multi-carrier channel (i.e., the super-channel).
The super-channel was centered at ∼1550 nm and its spectrum is
shown in Fig. 8a), 8b), 8c) and 8d) for the various formats under
study. Two or three 100 G DP-QPSK channels were switched-
off in the 60-channels multiplex (used to fill the C-band) to
allow the insertion of the 400 Gbps super-channel. The spac-
ing between the first/last SC of the super-channel and the first
neighboring channel of the 100 G multiplex was 43.75 GHz with
32 Gbaud DP-QPSK, 68.75 GHz with 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM,
62.5 GHz with 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK, and 56.25 GHz with
32 Gbaud DP-16QAM. The SCs experienced a root-raised co-
sine (RRC) Nyquist filtering both at the transmitter and receiver
side with a roll-off factor of ∼0.1. Inside the super-channel, the
SC spacing was 37.5 GHz, 62.5 GHz, 75 GHz, and 37.5 GHz
with 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK, 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM, 64 Gbaud DP-
QPSK, and 32 Gbaud DP-16QAM, respectively. The SD-FEC
implemented was based on LDPC convolutional codes, had 20%
overhead and a net coding gain of 11.3 dB, and resulted in a
data-rate of 128 Gbps and 256 Gbps per SC at 100 G and 200 G,
respectively. An optical switch was inserted between the com-
biner stage and the fiber line to connect either the 4 × 100 G or
the 2 × 200 G transmitter to the line.
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 37, NO. 2, JANUARY 15, 2019
The uncompensated 2000-km transmission line was consti-
tuted of twenty 100-km spans of G.652 fiber, whose losses were
compensated by single-stage EDFA with 20-dB gain and 4.5-dB
noise figure. Two dynamic gain equalizers (DGE) were inserted
after five (500 km) and fifteen (1500 km) spans in order to flatten
the multiplex power.
At the receiver side, a flat-top optical band-pass filter (OBPF)
whose bandwidth was tunable extracted the SC under mea-
surement. A second optical switch was used to send the sig-
nal towards the right real-time coherent receiver. Digital sig-
nal processing consisted in frequency-domain equalization for
chromatic dispersion (CD) compensation, 2 × 2 multiple-input
multiple-output (MIMO) time-domain equalization for polariza-
tion separation and polarization mode dispersion (PMD) miti-
gation, timing and carrier phase recovery, cycle slip detection
and correction, and FEC decoding.
Bit-error rates (BER) versus optical signal-to-noise ratios
(OSNR) are firstly plotted in back-to-back (BtB) in Fig. 9. The
FEC threshold is reached for a BER = 3.2 × 10−2 and an OSNR
in 0.1 nm of ∼10.3 dB with 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK, for a BER
= 2.9 × 10−2 and an OSNR of ∼16.8 dB with 45 Gbaud DP-
8QAM, for a BER = 1.2 × 10−2 and an OSNR of ∼14.8 dB with
64 Gbaud DP-QPSK, for a BER = 3.1 × 10−2 and an OSNR
LOUSSOUARN et al.: SINGLE-CARRIER AND MULTI-CARRIER 400 GBPS TRANSMISSION 533

of ∼18.2 dB with 32 Gbaud DP-16QAM. With respect to the
first generation of 32 Gbaud DP-16QAM (OSNR∼19.4 dB @
BER = 2.4 × 10−2 ) evaluated in the Section III, an improve-
ment of ∼1.2 dB over the OSNR limit measured at the FEC
threshold has been obtained. Identically, at the opposite side of
the sensitivity curve for high OSNRs, the error floor has been
pushed away roughly one BER decade, showing that the hard-
ware limitations and imperfections (due essentially to DACs
and ADCs) have been partly removed. As expected, 32 Gbaud
DP-QPSK is the best of the modulation formats under test,
followed by 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK, 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM, and
32 Gbaud DP-16QAM. In back-to-back at BER = 1 × 10−2 ,
64 Gbaud DP-QPSK is ∼3-dB worse than 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK
(OSNR∼15 dB against OSNR∼12 dB), 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM is
∼4-dB worse than 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK (OSNR∼19 dB against
OSNR∼15 dB), 32 Gbaud DP-16QAM is ∼2-dB worse than
45 Gbaud DP-8QAM (OSNR∼21 dB against OSNR∼19 dB).
The performance of the modulation formats under test was
then evaluated over the transmission test-bed depicted in Fig. 8.
BERs and OSNR as a function of the span input powers per chan-
nel were firstly measured after 500 km, 1000 km, 1500 km and
2000 km in order to determine the optimum span input power
per SC and the corresponding BER and OSNR. Optimums were
reported over the BER versus OSNR graphs of Fig. 9 in order
to be compared with the BtB performance. Note that the power
per sub-carrier was aligned over the power of 100 G channels
that fill the C-band at the transmitter side. Additionally, an am-
plified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise source was inserted
at the end of the transmission line (just before the OBPF) to load
the system with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). Noise
loading at the receiver side allowed us to reach the FEC thresh-
old when the transmission impairments had not sufficiently de-
graded the BER. As expected, 4 × 100 G DP-QPSK @ 32 Gbaud
permit to reach the longest transmission distance (i.e., 2000 km)
with the highest OSNR margin (∼8.2 dB). 2 × 200 G DP-QPSK
@ 64 Gbaud follows with 2000 km of maximum transmission
distance and an OSNR margin reduced to 4.2 dB. 2 × 200 G DP-
8QAM @ 45 Gbaud arrives at the third place with 2000 km and
1.8 dB of OSNR margin. At the last place of the queue, 2 × 200
G DP-16QAM can propagate over 1000 km with 1.8-dB OSNR
margin. The optimum launch powers per sub-carrier for the
shortest distance (i.e., 500 km and 1000 km) were ∼[1–2] dBm
and decreased up to ∼[0–1] dBm for the longest ones (i.e.,
1500 km and 2000 km) depending of the modulation format.
These results clearly show all the interest for a telco to operate a
multi-rate multi-format transceiver in order to adapt the system
spectral efficiency to the various application cases (data center
interconnects, metro/regional, long-haul, ultra-long-haul) that
are encountered over optical transport networks.
VI. GAUSSIAN NOISE MODEL AND ITS APPLICATION
TO EXPERIMENTS PERFORMED
Owing to the big volume of data accumulated, we also
analyzed the fiber non-linear robustness of the transmission
techniques under test thanks to the Gaussian noise (GN) model
[30]–[35], [41]. The GN model permits to extract the ANL
parameter from the data measurements, and to quantify the fiber
non-linear interference/noise that affects optical channels as a
function of the fiber type, transmission distance, modulation
format and symbol-rate used.
It has been shown in [30]–[35], [41] that fiber non-linear
impairment/noise has a Gaussian statistics in non-dispersion
managed (i.e., uncompensated) coherent transmission systems
using QAM modulation. This fiber non-linear noise is indepen-
dent and cumulative to ASE noise (generated by optical ampli-
fiers), and similarly impairs symbols of the QAM constellation.
As a result, a generalized signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) can be
derived as:
PS
SN R =
PAS E + PN L I
PS is the nominal channel power (here the power per sub-carrier),
PASE is the ASE noise power in the signal bandwidth, PNLI is the
non-linear interference (NLI) noise power. The optical signal-
to-noise ratio (OSNR) is given by:
PS
OSN R =
PAS E
By analogy the non-linear signal-to-noise ratio (SNRNLI ) can
be written as:
PS
S N RN L I =
PN L I
The generalized SNR can thus be written as:
1 1 1
= +
SN R OSN R S N RN L I
Moreover, references [30]–[35], [41] propose that the power
of the nonlinear noise for a given transmission distance is well
approximated by:
PN L I = A N L PS3
with ANL a suitable constant which depends on transmission
system parameters. At the optimum launched power per channel
into the fiber spans, the derivative of the “bell-shape” BER (or
Q2 -factor) versus PS curve is null. As the generalized SNR and
Q2 -factor in logarithmic scale (i.e., in dB) are linearly dependant
[31], [33], [34], [41], the derivative of the generalized SNR
versus Ps curve is also null at the optimum span input power.
We have thus at this particular point:
∂SN R
=0
∂ PS
which gives the following formulas:
PAS E = 2A N L PS3 = 2PN L I
2
SN R = OSN R
3
The GN model provides the interesting result that at the op-
timum span input power, the Gaussian noise impairing the con-
stellation points comes for one third from the non-linear noise
and for two third from the ASE noise. The ANL parameter comes
thus straightforwardly from the knowledge of the OSNR at the
534
Fig. 10. ANL as a function of the transmission distance for the various trans-
mission techniques under test.
optimum span input power:
PAS E 1 32 Gbaud DP-16QAM formats. We find the following results
AN L = 3
= 2
2PS 2PS O S N R
We have applied this formula to the various experimental
results obtained in this manuscript. For memory, through our
measurements, we have varied the QAM format, the symbol
rate, the transmission distance and the fiber type used. Fig. 10
shows the ANL extrapolated from our OSNR measurements. As
expected, increasing the transmission distance enhances non-
linear effects and the ANL parameter as well. Fig. 10 shows
also very clearly the impact of changing the fiber type when
the 61 Gbaud single-carrier DP-16QAM format was chosen.
The Vascade EX2000 fiber is by far the best fiber with re-
spect to non-linear interference: it has the lowest ANL due to
its super-large effective area (∼112 μm²) and high chromatic
dispersion (∼ 20 ps/nm/km @ 1550 nm). G.652 fiber arrives
just behind, followed by the G.655 fiber which has the high-
est ANL due to its lowest effective area (∼72 µm²) and poor
level of chromatic dispersion (∼4.2 ps/nm/km @ 1550 nm) that
exacerbates cross-phase modulation and four-wave mixing. We
also compare the ANL of the various QAM formats (i.e., QPSK,
8QAM, 16QAM) operating at various symbol rates (32 Gbaud,
45 Gbaud, >60 Gbaud). Even if we have not implemented QAM
order superior to 16 or symbol rate below 32 Gbaud or higher
than 64 Gbaud, the ANL parameter shows a minor dependence
to the QAM order or the symbol rate (by contrast to the fiber
type or the transmission distance). Finally, in order to refine our
analysis and as suggested by reference [31], [33], [34], [41],
the ANL parameter can be expressed as a function of the span
number:
A N L = αN L N 
In logarithmic scale, it gives:
A N L (d B) = α N L (d B) + ε log10 (N )
We fit the ANL versus transmission distance (or equivalently
span number) plot in logarithmic scale by a linear regression
curve (as suggested by the above formula) for the 32 Gbaud
DP-QPSK, 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM, 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK, and
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 37, NO. 2, JANUARY 15, 2019
Fig. 11. Method to determine experimentally the generalized SNR from the
BER versus OSNR measurements performed in back-to-back and after trans-
mission.
over the G.652 fiber:
A N L (d B) = 27.62 + 1.26 log10 (N ) f or 32 Gbaud D P
− Q PSK
A N L (d B) = 27.55 + 1.231 log10 (N ) f or 45 Gbaud D P
− 8Q AM
A N L (d B) = 28.49 + 1.131 log10 (N ) f or 64 Gbaud D P
− Q PSK
A N L (d B) = 28.46 + 1.035 log10 (N ) f or 32 Gbaud D P
− 16Q AM
The slope ε of the linear regression (e.g., 1.26 dB/dB for the
32 Gbaud DP-QPSK) allows to better observe the difference
between the modulation formats under test. Note that our ε val-
ues are in-line with what has been reported by the literature
[31], [33], [34], [41] for the 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK format over
the G.652 fiber. Furthermore, as stated by these references [31],
[33], [34], [41], the transmission performance of a QAM system
(i.e., the determination of SNRNLI and SNR) can be predicted
by the simple knowledge of the evolution of ANL as a function
of the span number and thus by the knowledge of ε and α NL .
In the last part of this Section VI, we discuss the validity of the
GN model by confronting its predictions to our measurements.
In everything we did before, we considered that the SNR was
directly inferred from the measured OSNR by:
2
SN R = OSN R
3
which can be also expressed in logarithmic scale:
S N R (d B) ∼ O S N R (d B) − 1.76 d B
In other words, in everything we did before, we considered
when determining ANL that the difference of ∼1.76 dB between
the experimentally determined OSNR and the generalized SNR
was always present. Let us remind that the generalized SNR can
be also inferred from the BER versus OSNR measurements
LOUSSOUARN et al.: SINGLE-CARRIER AND MULTI-CARRIER 400 GBPS TRANSMISSION
Fig. 12. ANL as a function of the span number in logarithmic scale for both 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK and 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK formats.
TABLE II
[OSNR-SNR] (DECIBELS) FOR VARIOUS DISTANCES FOR THE MODULATION
FORMATS UNDER TEST IN FIG. 9
performed in back-to-back and after fiber propagation. The
Gaussian nature of the ASE and NLI noise allows assuming that
the generalized SNR corresponding to L kilometers of trans-
mission (at the optimum span input power) matches the point
over the back-to-back curve that has the same BER than the
transmission point, as shown over the Fig. 11 below.
The Table II reports the measured [OSNR–SNR](dB) values
obtained for the 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK, 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM,
64 Gbaud DP-QPSK, and 32 Gbaud DP-16QAM formats.
We observe deviations with respect to the prediction of the
GN model (i.e., OSNRdB – SNRdB ∼ 1.76 dB) that could reach
more than 1 dB (in particular, for the 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK
modulation format @ 2000 km).
As previously, we determined the evolution of the ANL pa-
rameter as a function of the span number by using the measured
SNR (and not anymore the SNR stemming from the GN model).
Let us observe that the ANL parameter comes straightforwardly
from the following formula:
 
PN L I 1 1 1 1
AN L = = 2 = 2 −
PS3 PS S N R N L I PS SN R OSN R
535
TABLE III
PERFORMANCE RESULTS FOR THE MODULATION FORMATS UNDER TEST
in which the assumption that SNR is 2/3 of OSNR is not used
anymore. By applying the same procedure than the one de-
scribed previously, we obtained the ANL evolution as a function
of the span number N for the 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK, 45 Gbaud
DP-8QAM, 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK, and 32 Gbaud DP-16QAM
formats:
A N L (d B) = 27.33 + 1.347 log10 (N ) f or 32 Gbaud D P
− Q PSK
A N L (d B) = 29.14 + 1.133 log10 (N ) f or 45 Gbaud D P
− 8Q AM
A N L (d B) = 27.68 + 1.371 log10 (N ) f or 64 Gbaud D P
− Q PSK
A N L (d B) = 30.28 + 0.887 log10 (N ) f or 32 Gbaud D P
− 16Q AM
As expected, we observe some differences between the
ANL evolution foreseen by a strict application of the GN
model and the ANL evolution stemming from our experimental
536
measurements. When we superimpose the ANL versus span num-
ber curves obtained with the two methods (for instance for
32 Gbaud DP-QPSK and 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK, as shown in
Fig. 12), we do not notice over the ANL curves gaps higher than
1 dB for 32 Gbaud DP-QPSK, 0.9 dB for 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM,
and 0.8 dB for 32 Gbaud DP-16QAM. The highest gap between
the two methods appears for the 64 Gbaud DP-QPSK format:
the difference between the ANL values can reach ∼ 2.5 dB (@
2000 km). This can be explained by the following reason: for
the highest symbol rate, the simplest version of the GN model
(used here) does not take into account intra-channel non-linear
impairments that become not negligible anymore at such high
baud rate with respect to inter-channel non-linear effects. The
GN model has thus to be handled with care in such conditions.
VII. CONCLUSION
In this manuscript, we have investigated the performance of
400 Gbps transmission techniques with single-carrier and multi-
carrier real-time transceiver prototypes. The following modula-
tion formats have been studied: quadruple-carrier 32 Gbaud
DP QPSK, dual-carrier 45 Gbaud DP-8QAM, dual-carrier
64 Gbaud DP-QPSK, dual-carrier 32 Gbaud DP-16QAM,
single-carrier 61 Gbaud DP-16QAM. Depending on whether
transmission distance, spectral efficiency or cost is the predomi-
nant driver, the multi-rate multi-format transceiver can be tuned
to meet the requirements of the targeted application, i.e., data-
center interconnects, metro/regional, long-haul, or ultra long-
haul applications. After back-to-back characterization, all these
400 Gbps modulation techniques have been challenged over a
20 × 100-km uncompensated G.652 fiber transmission test-bed.
Our main results are summarized in the Table III below.
We have also demonstrated error-free transmission of
real-time 400 Gbps SC-DP-16QAM transponder prototypes
operating at 61 Gbaud over 200 km, 300 km and 500 km of
uncompensated G.655, G.652 and G.654 fiber lines. In spite
of digital and analogue components with limited bandwidth
(<15 GHz), narrow filtering compensation based on MLSE
equalization allows us to use high symbol-rate QAM, opening
the way to beyond 100 G low-cost single-carrier transmission
for data-center interconnects and metro/regional applications.
At last, thank to the accumulation of a high volume of data,
we have analyzed the fiber non-linear robustness of the
transmission techniques under test thanks to the well-known
Gaussian noise model. The GN model permits to extract the
ANL parameter from the data measurements, and to quantify the
fiber non-linear interference/noise that affects optical channels
as a function of the fiber type, transmission distance, modulation
format and symbol-rate. We have shown that fiber type and
transmission distance have a significant impact on the ANL , that
is not the case of QAM format or symbol-rate that have a minor
influence. However, at symbol rate as high as 64 Gbaud, the
GN model has to be handled with care because intra-channel
non-linear impairments are not negligible anymore with respect
to inter-channel non-linear effects. All these data will be helpful
for the optical communication community who are looking for
references for experiments and numerical simulations.
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 37, NO. 2, JANUARY 15, 2019
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank Corning Incorporated for providing
the Corning Vascade EX2000 optical fiber used in these
experiments.
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Yann Loussouarn received the Graduate degree from the Institut National des
Telecommunications (now Telecom Paris Sud), Évry, France. He has tens of
years of experience in France Telecom over transport and access networks. Dur-
ing these past few years, he has been working on optical networking solutions in
charge of investigations on transport network architecture evolutions covering
both backhaul and metro/core networks. He is currently involved in the analysis
of 100G and beyond solutions for innovative network architectures.
537
Erwan Pincemin received the Graduate degrees from the Ecole Supérieure
d’Optique (SupOptique), Orsay, France, and from the Université Paris XI, Or-
say, France, in “optics and photonics,” both in 1996.
In 1997, he joined Alcatel Alsthom Recherche, Marcoussis, France, where he
worked on dispersion-managed soliton propagation and optical regeneration for
40 Gbps wavelength-division multiplexing submarine transmission systems.
In 2000, he was enrolled by France Telecom R&D, Lannion, France, where
he worked on high-speed optical terrestrial transmission systems at 10 Gbps,
40 Gbps, and beyond. He participated in several European collaborative projects
(NOBEL I & II, e-Photon-One, etc.). More recently, in Orange Labs, Lannion,
France, he is in charge of research on 100 Gbps and beyond optical trans-
missions, including advanced modulation format, coherent detection, digital
mitigation of fiber impairments, and has also some key contributions on flexi-
ble optical networking, in particular through his participation in the European
FOX-C and CELTIC SASER consortia. Recently as well, he has started working
on quantum communications through his participation in the European H2020
Flagship CiViQ project. He is currently involved in OpenROADM and ITU-T
standardization process through his activities on interworking of 100 Gbps and
beyond optical interfaces in the Study Group 15 Question 6 and Question 11.
He is the author and co-author of more than 130 journal and conference papers
and 28 patents.
Mr. Pincemin has served as a Member and a Sub-Committee Chair of the
Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe from 2011 to 2017 and par-
ticipated from 2007 to 2010 and again since 2017 in the technical program
committee of the Optical Fibre Communications Conference.
Serge Gauthier received the Graduate degree from the Institut National des
Telecommunications (now Telecom Paris Sud), Évry, France, in 1994. In the
past, he worked on synchronous digital hierarchy systems and actively partic-
ipated in signaling protocol attached to ATM as an expert. Since 2015, he has
been working on optical transport and validation of wavelength-division multi-
plexing and access network equipment. He also regularly performs training on
these topics for Orange affiliates.
Yang Chen graduated from Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, in 2006. He
was with Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., in 2006 and has tens of years of
experience over transport and IP networks. During these past few years, he
has been working on optical networking solutions validation, transport network
architecture evolution, and solution test. Since 2014, he has been involved with
Huawei France and corporate with Orange in transport solution. He is currently
involved in the analysis of 100G and beyond solutions for innovative network
architectures.
Wushuang Yuan, biography not available at the time of publication.
Yang Hong, biography not available at the time of publication.
Xiong Wei, biography not available at the time of publication.
Zhang Dejiang, biography not available at the time of publication.