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6
Ultra-high-speed OTDM transmission
technology
Hans-Georg Weber and Reinhold Ludwig
Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-
Institut, Einsteinufer 37, Berlin, Germany

6.1 INTRODUCTION

The expected increase of transmission capacity in optical fiber networks presents

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us with many technology challenges [1]. One of these challenges is an optimized
combination of wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) and time-division mul-
tiplexing (TDM). TDM may be realized by electrical multiplexing (ETDM) or by
optical multiplexing (OTDM) to a high-speed data signal, i.e., by electrical signal
processing or optical signal processing. Presently, the first 40 Gb/s systems based
on ETDM have been installed and in laboratories the first 100 Gb/s ETDM-
experiments have been performed, e.g., Ref. [2]. In contrast, at the same data
rates, OTDM transmission experiments have been carried out more than 10 years
earlier. For instance, the first 100 Gb/s OTDM transmission experiment over a
36 km fiber link was reported already in 1993 [3]. Since then, OTDM transmission
technology has been made a lot of progress towards much higher bit rates and
much longer transmission links, as has been described in several review articles
[4–6] and will be discussed in this chapter with special emphasis on the most
recent developments. Recently, OTDM transmission technology succeeded in the
transmission of a TDM data rate of 160 Gb/s over a record fiber length of 4320 km
[7] and of a TDM data rate of 2.4 Tb/s over a fiber link length of 160 km [8].
The past has seen that OTDM will be replaced by ETDM as soon as electrical
signal processing becomes available at the required TDM data rate. Therefore,
OTDM transmission technology is often considered to be an interim technique
with which to investigate the feasibility of ultra-high-speed data transmission in
fibers. Today, the ultimate limits of ETDM technology are not known. An ETDM
data rate of 160 Gb/s is very likely in the future. However, the performance of the
ETDM terminal equipment may eventually be worse than the OTDM terminal

Optical Fiber Telecommunications V B: Systems and Networks

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202 Hans-Georg Weber and Reinhold Ludwig

equipment. OTDM receivers perform better than ETDM receivers already at data
rates of 80 Gb/s. In this chapter we will show that the OTDM terminal equipment
for 160 Gb/s TDM data transmission provides already very stable operation con-
ditions. These results suggest that 160 Gb/s OTDM transmission systems can be
used in deployed systems and can be operated error-free for years. ETDM tech-
nology must work hard to compete with these systems for instance as regards
receiver sensitivity. Moreover, it is not sure that ETDM terminal equipment for
160 Gb/s will be less expensive and less energy consuming than the corresponding
OTDM terminal equipment.
The ultimate limits of OTDM transmission technology are not given by the
terminal equipment but by the transmission properties of the fiber link including
all repeater or amplifier stages. With higher TDM bit rate data transmission in
fiber is stronger affected by chromatic dispersion (CD), polarization-mode disper-
sion (PMD), fiber nonlinearity, and the limited bandwidth of repeaters or ampli-
fiers in the transmission link. This is independent of the signal processing in
the terminal equipment whether it is based on ETDM or OTDM technology. At
present therefore, a main task of OTDM technology is to explore the ultimate
capacity for fiber transmission in a single wavelength channel. The most challen-
ging view as regards OTDM technology is that optical networks will evolve into
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“photonic networks,” in which ultra-fast optical signals of any bit rate and
modulation format will be transmitted and processed from end to end without
optical–electrical–optical (O/E/O) conversion. This “photonic network” is a target
for the distant future, and it presents us with the present challenge of investigating
and developing high-speed optical signal processing and exploring the ultimate
capacity for fiber transmission in a single wavelength channel.
OTDM transmission technology is described in this chapter as follows:
Section 6.2 gives a general description of an OTDM system, followed by a
discussion of the OTDM transmitter in Section 6.3, of the OTDM receiver in
Section 6.4 and of the fiber transmission line in Section 6.5. Transmission experi-
ments are described in Section 6.6 starting with a review on 160 Gb/s transmission
experiments in Section 6.6.1, on transmission at data rates beyond 160 Gb/s in
Section 6.6.2, and on OTDM/WDM transmission experiments in Section 6.6.3.
Then follows a detailed description of two 160 Gb/s transmission experiments:
transmission with long-term stability in Section 6.6.4 and transmission over a
record fiber length of 4320 km in Section 6.6.5. In Section 6.6.6 we report on
transmission experiments at the TDM data rates of 1.28 and 2.56 Tb/s. Finally,
Section 6.7 summarizes our conclusions on the present state of OTDM technology.

6.2 OTDM TRANSMISSION SYSTEM

Figure 6.1 (upper part) is a schematic depiction of a 160 Gb/s OTDM transmission
system as an example. On the transmitter side, the essential component is an
optical pulse source. The repetition frequency of the generated pulse train is
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6. Ultra-High-Speed OTDM Transmission Technology 203

160 Gb/s OTDM transmitter Fiber link 160 Gb/s OTDM receiver
40 Gb/s
MOD receiver
40 Gb/s
MOD
Pulse receiver
DEMUX
source 40 Gb/s
MOD
160 Gb/s receiver
40 GHz
MOD 40 Gb/s
receiver

4 × 40 Gb/s 4 × 40 Gb/s

Simplified laboratory system

40 Gb/s 40 160 Gb/s 160 40 Gb/s 40 Gb/s

transmitter MUX DEMUX receiver

Figure 6.1 Schematic view of a 160 Gb/s OTDM transmission system (upper part of figure) and of a
simplified laboratory system (lower part of figure).
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assumed to be 40 GHz. In general, the repetition frequency depends on the base

data rate (or on the symbol rate, see Section 6.3.2), at which the subsequent
modulators (MOD) are driven by an electrical data signal (base rate signal). The
40 GHz optical pulse train is coupled into four optical branches, in which four
40 Gb/s non-return-to-zero (NRZ) electrical data signals drive four modulators
(MOD) and generate four 40 Gb/s optical return-to-zero (RZ) data signals. The
modulation formats include on–off keying (OOK) and differential phase shift key-
ing (DPSK). The setup in Figure 6.1 can also be used for the modulation format
differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK). However, in this case one has
to take into account that the bit rate (expressed in bit per second, b/s) is twice the
symbol rate (expressed in baud, for details see Section 6.3.2). The four optical data
signals (TDM channels) are combined to a multiplexed 160 Gb/s optical data signal
by bit-interleaving with use of an appropriate delay in the four optical branches.
Multiplexing (MUX) can be such that all bits of the multiplexed data signal have
the same polarization (single polarization (SP) signal, SP multiplexing) or adjacent
bits have alternating (orthogonal) polarization (AP multiplexing, AP-signal). On
the receiver side, the essential component is an optical demultiplexer (DEMUX),
which separates the four base rate data signals (TDM channels) again for subse-
quent detection and electrical signal processing. The transmission link requires in
general compensation for CD and PMD, which both depend on the type of single-
mode fiber (SMF) used in the transmission system.
The DEMUX shown in Figure 6.1 comprises two parts, an optical gate and a
clock recovery device. The optical gate is a fast switch with a switching time that
is shorter than the bit period (6.25 ps for 160 Gb/s) of the multiplexed data signal.
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