U.S. patent application number 16/391527 was filed with the patent office on 2020-10-29 for built-in jitter loading and state of polarization generation to characterize optical transceivers.
The applicant listed for this patent is Ciena Corporation. Invention is credited to Ahmad Abdo, Sadok Aouini, Naim Ben-Hamida, Timothy James Creasy, Shahab Oveis Gharan, Lukas Jakober, Yalmez M.A. Yazaw.
Application Number | 20200344038 16/391527 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 1000005147467 |
Filed Date | 2020-10-29 |
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-D00000.png)
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-D00001.png)
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-D00002.png)
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-D00003.png)
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-D00004.png)
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-D00005.png)
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-D00006.png)
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-D00007.png)
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-M00001.png)
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-M00002.png)
![](/patent/app/20200344038/US20200344038A1-20201029-M00003.png)
View All Diagrams
United States Patent
Application |
20200344038 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Aouini; Sadok ; et
al. |
October 29, 2020 |
Built-in jitter loading and state of polarization generation to
characterize optical transceivers
Abstract
A system includes an optical transmitter including a transmitter
Phase Lock Loop (PLL) circuit; an optical receiver connected to the
optical transmitter and including a receiver PLL circuit; and
circuitry configured to inject a test stimulus to a clock causing
jitter in one of the transmitter PLL circuitry and the receiver PLL
circuit, wherein the test stimulus is set for characterizing the
jitter tolerance of optical receiver. As well, a circuit that
injects SOP transient at the transmitter is included. It is
configured to test the tolerance of optical receiver to handle fast
change in the SOP state. The optical receiver is configured to
determine if the system is operational at a jitter value due to the
test stimulus based on compliance to one or more thresholds
including any of a target Bit Error Rate, a
Forward-Error-Correction (FEC) hit, and a jitter Root Mean Square
(RMS).
Inventors: |
Aouini; Sadok; (Gatineau,
CA) ; Ben-Hamida; Naim; (Nepean, CA) ; Abdo;
Ahmad; (Kanata, CA) ; Creasy; Timothy James;
(Manotick, CA) ; Jakober; Lukas; (Ottawa, CA)
; Yazaw; Yalmez M.A.; (Nepean, CA) ; Gharan;
Shahab Oveis; (Ottawa, CA) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Ciena Corporation |
Hanover |
MD |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
1000005147467 |
Appl. No.: |
16/391527 |
Filed: |
April 23, 2019 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04B 10/0795 20130101;
H04B 10/40 20130101; H04L 7/0331 20130101; H04B 10/071 20130101;
H04B 10/25 20130101 |
International
Class: |
H04L 7/033 20060101
H04L007/033; H04B 10/071 20060101 H04B010/071; H04B 10/079 20060101
H04B010/079; H04B 10/25 20060101 H04B010/25; H04B 10/40 20060101
H04B010/40 |
Claims
1. A system comprising: an optical transmitter including a
transmitter Phase Lock Loop (PLL) circuit; an optical receiver
connected to the optical transmitter and including a receiver PLL
circuit; and circuitry configured to inject a test stimulus to a
clock purposefully causing jitter in one of the transmitter PLL
circuitry and the receiver PLL circuit, wherein the test stimulus
is set for characterizing the jitter support of the system and is
set to produce a jitter mask based on a fixed jitter value, and
wherein the optical receiver is configured to determine compliance
to one or more thresholds to determine if the system is operational
at the fixed jitter value.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical receiver is further
configured to determine if the system is operational at the fixed
jitter value due to the test stimulus based on compliance to one or
more thresholds including any of a target Bit Error Rate, a
Forward-Error-Correction (FEC) hit, and a jitter Root Mean Square
(RMS).
3. (canceled)
4. The system of claim 1, wherein the test stimulus is further set
to produce different jitter values in amplitude and frequency, and
wherein the optical receiver is configured to determine if the
system is operational at the different jitter values based on
compliance to the one or more thresholds.
5. The system of claim 1, further comprising: a fiber link between
the optical transmitter and the optical receiver, wherein the test
stimulus is utilized to characterize the jitter support of the
fiber link.
6. The system of claim 1, wherein the circuitry configured to
inject the test stimulus is integrated in the optical transmitter,
and wherein the optical receiver is configured to recovery a clock
and measure an impact of the caused jitter.
7. The system of claim 1, wherein the circuitry configured to
inject the test stimulus is integrated in the optical transmitter,
and wherein the optical receiver is configured to recovery a clock
plus the test stimulus and measure an impact of the caused
jitter.
8. The system of claim 1, wherein the circuitry configured to
inject the test stimulus is programmed utilizing a Look Up Table
(LUT).
9. The system of claim 1, wherein the circuitry configured to
inject the test stimulus is integrated in the transmitter PLL as a
phase interpolator in a feedback loop.
10. The system of claim 1, further comprising: firmware configured
to perform a State of Polarization (SOP) injection at the optical
transmitter, to characterize optical receiver tolerance to SOP
transient operation.
11. The system of claim 1, further comprising: firmware configured
to perform both State of Polarization (SOP) and Differential Group
Delay (DGD) injection at the optical transmitter, to characterize
optical receiver tolerance to SOP transient operation, in presence
of DGD.
12. The system of claim 1, wherein the test stimulus is a
deterministic periodic signal including any of i) a multi-tone
signal having any spectral shape and distribution and ii) a
deterministic band-limited noise signal.
13. An optical receiver comprising: an Electro-Optic (EO) device
configured to interface a fiber link; an Analog-Digital Converter
(ADC) connected to the EO device; a receiver Digital Signal
Processor (DSP) connected to the ADC; and a receiver Phase Lock
Loop (PLL) circuit connected to the ADC and the receiver DSP;
wherein the receiver DSP and the receiver PLL are configured to
recover a clock from an optical signal received over the fiber link
and to measure an impact of jitter purposefully injected in the
clock, and wherein the jitter purposefully injected is set to
produce a jitter mask based on a fixed jitter value, and wherein
the optical receiver is configured to determine compliance to one
or more thresholds to determine if the optical receiver is
operational at the fixed jitter value.
14. The optical receiver of claim 13, wherein the jitter
purposefully injected is further at a specified jitter value, and
wherein the receiver DSP is configured to determine compliance to
the one or more thresholds including any of a target Bit Error
Rate, a Forward-Error-Correction (FEC) hit, and a jitter Root Mean
Square (RMS).
15. (canceled)
16. The optical receiver of claim 13, wherein the jitter
purposefully injected is further set to produce different jitter
values in amplitude and frequency, and wherein the optical receiver
is configured to determine if the optical receiver is operational
at the different jitter values based on compliance to the one or
more thresholds.
17. An optical transmitter comprising: a transmitter Phase Lock
Loop (PLL) circuit configured to receive a signal with an
associated clock; a Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) connected to
the transmitter PLL; and an Electro-Optic (EO) device connected to
the DAC and configured to transmit over a fiber link, wherein the
transmitter PLL circuit is configured to inject a test stimulus to
the associated clock purposefully causing jitter for characterizing
jitter support, and wherein the test stimulus is set to produce a
jitter mask based on a fixed jitter value, and wherein a
corresponding optical receiver is configured to determine
compliance to one or more thresholds to determine if the optical
receiver is operational at the fixed jitter value.
18. The optical transmitter of claim 17, wherein corresponding
optical receiver is configured to determine compliance to the one
or more thresholds including any of a target Bit Error Rate, a
Forward-Error-Correction (FEC) hit, and a jitter Root Mean Square
(RMS).
19. The optical transmitter of claim 17, wherein the transmitter
PLL circuit includes a phase interpolator in a feedback loop.
20. The optical transmitter of claim 17, further comprising:
firmware configured to perform a State of Polarization (SOP)
injection to the signal, to characterize SOP transient operation.
Description
FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE
[0001] The present disclosure generally relates to fiber optics.
More particularly, the present disclosure relates to systems and
methods for built-in jitter loading and state of polarization
generation to characterize optical transceivers.
BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSURE
[0002] The move from vendor-locked line systems and mature
proprietary coherent Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technologies
optical networks to both interoperable transponders (e.g., OIF
400GZR), line networks (e.g., openROADM) and open cables proposed
for submarine applications, is the trend for future networks
deployments. An important aspect of high-speed systems design is
the area of synchronization, and specifically the control of jitter
to ensure end-to-end reliability. Especially in optical networks
that span large distances, such as those implemented for
continent-wide or transoceanic submarine applications. Due to the
non-idealities of circuits and systems, a synthesized clock has
deviation. The latter is manifested as phase and frequency drifting
and variations. At the physical layer, to determine if a
transmitted bit is 1 or 0, the recovered clock signal from data
should occur at a time where eye opening is maximum. Therefore, if
the jitter in a system is not tracked, it can cause bit errors that
degrade the performance of the transmission system.
[0003] Stringent specifications on jitter are unavoidable, and ways
to reduce the sources of jitter is a key part of high-speed
telecommunication systems. As well, it is becoming vital for
network operators to have physical level tests to characterize both
modems and channels. Such tests need to report information such as
noise tolerance and jitter tolerance.
[0004] In Kim, et al., "An on-chip jitter tolerance test circuit
for mobile and video interfaces," 2016 IEEE International
Conference on Consumer Electronics-Asia (ICCE-Asia), Seoul, 2016,
pp. 1-4, jitter injection at the output of charge pump of the Phase
Locked Loop (PLL) is described, where the amplitude of voltage
driving the Voltage-Controlled Oscillator (VCO) is being modulated.
The drawbacks of this approach are its analog nature. As well, how
the charge pump is loaded which can only be high-pass since it is
complementary to the main PLL loop; since the latter has a pole at
DC.
[0005] As stated in Yi Cai, et al., "Jitter testing for gigabit
serial communication transceivers," in IEEE Design & Test of
Computers, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 66-74, January/February 2002, the
majority of high-speed digital wireline transceivers have their
Digital-to-Analog Converters (DAC) timing is controlled by a PLL.
While at the receiver (Rx) side, PLL and Delay-Locked Loop (DLL)
are used to extract the clock information from the data and
correction is applied properly to Analog-to-Digital Converters
(ADC) or to digital interpolator within DSP.
[0006] The conventional approach to test jitter and/or SOP includes
external test equipment, e.g., a jitter and BERT (Bit Error Rate
Test) module. Such modules are costly, bulky, and external devices.
Further, these test modules require calibration, connection, and
physical space.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE
[0007] In an embodiment, a system includes an optical transmitter
including a transmitter Phase Lock Loop (PLL) circuit; an optical
receiver connected to the optical transmitter and including a
receiver PLL circuit; and circuitry configured to inject a test
stimulus to a clock purposefully causing jitter in one of the
transmitter PLL circuitry and the receiver PLL circuit, wherein the
test stimulus is set for characterizing the jitter support of the
system. The optical receiver can be configured to determine if the
system is operational at a jitter value due to the test stimulus
based on compliance to one or more thresholds including any of a
target Bit Error Rate, a Forward-Error-Correction (FEC) hit, and a
jitter Root Mean Square (RMS). The test stimulus can be set to
produce a jitter mask based on a fixed jitter value, and wherein
the optical receiver can be configured to determine compliance to
one or more thresholds to determine if the system is operational at
the fixed jitter value. The test stimulus can beset to produce
different jitter values in amplitude and frequency, and wherein the
optical receiver is configured to determine if the system is
operational at the different jitter values based on compliance to
one or more thresholds to determine. The system can further include
a fiber link between the optical transmitter and the optical
receiver, wherein the test stimulus is utilized to characterize the
jitter support of the fiber link. The configured to inject the test
stimulus can be integrated in the optical transmitter, and wherein
the optical receiver can be configured to recovery a clock and
measure an impact of the caused jitter.
[0008] The circuitry configured to inject the test stimulus can be
integrated in the optical receiver, and wherein the optical
receiver can be configured to recovery a clock plus the test
stimulus and measure an impact of the caused jitter. The circuitry
configured to inject the test stimulus can be programmed utilizing
a Look Up Table (LUT). The circuitry configured to inject the test
stimulus can be integrated in the transmitter PLL as a phase
interpolator in a feedback loop. The system can further include
firmware configured to perform a State of Polarization (SOP)
injection at the optical transmitter, to characterize optical
receiver tolerance to SOP transient operation. The system can
further include firmware configured to perform both State of
Polarization (SOP) and Differential Group Delay (DGD) injection at
the optical transmitter, to characterize optical receiver tolerance
to SOP transient operation, in presence of DGD. The test stimulus
can be a deterministic periodic signal including any of i) a
multi-tone signal having any spectral shape and distribution and
ii) a deterministic band-limited noise signal.
[0009] In another embodiment, an optical receiver includes an
Electro-Optic (EO) device configured to interface a fiber link; an
Analog-Digital Converter (ADC) connected to the EO device; a
receiver Digital Signal Processor (DSP) connected to the ADC; and a
receiver Phase Lock Loop (PLL) circuit connected to the ADC and the
receiver DSP; wherein the receiver DSP and the receiver PLL are
configured to recover a clock from an optical signal received over
the fiber link and to measure an impact of jitter purposefully
injected in the clock. The jitter purposefully injected can be at a
specified jitter value, and wherein the receiver DSP is configured
to determine compliance to one or more thresholds including any of
a target Bit Error Rate, a Forward-Error-Correction (FEC) hit, and
a jitter Root Mean Square (RMS). The jitter purposefully injected
can be set to produce a jitter mask based on a fixed jitter value,
and wherein the optical receiver is configured to determine
compliance to one or more thresholds to determine if the optical
receiver is operational at the fixed jitter value. The jitter
purposefully injected can beset to produce different jitter values
in amplitude and frequency, and wherein the optical receiver is
configured to determine if the optical receiver is operational at
the different jitter values based on compliance to one or more
thresholds.
[0010] In a further embodiment, an optical transmitter includes a
transmitter Phase Lock Loop (PLL) circuit configured to receive a
signal with an associated clock; a Digital-to-Analog Converter
(DAC) connected to the transmitter PLL; and an Electro-Optic (EO)
device connected to the DAC and configured to transmit over a fiber
link, wherein the transmitter PLL circuit is configured to inject a
test stimulus to the associated clock purposefully causing jitter
for characterizing jitter support. The purposefully caused jitter
can beat a specified jitter value, and wherein a corresponding
optical receiver is configured to determine compliance to one or
more thresholds including any of a target Bit Error Rate, a
Forward-Error-Correction (FEC) hit, and a jitter Root Mean Square
(RMS). The transmitter PLL circuit can include a phase interpolator
in a feedback loop. The optical transmitter can further include
firmware configured to perform a State of Polarization (SOP)
injection to the signal, to characterize SOP transient
operation.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0011] The present disclosure is illustrated and described herein
with reference to the various drawings, in which like reference
numbers are used to denote like system components/method steps, as
appropriate, and in which:
[0012] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system for characterizing
jitter by modulating a transmitter clock with a test stimulus and
determining the measured impact;
[0013] FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a system for characterizing
jitter by modulating a recovered clock with a test stimulus and
determining the measured impact;
[0014] FIG. 3 is a block diagram of circuitry associated with the
transmitter and the receiver for implementing jitter generation for
jitter characterization;
[0015] FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an automated process for jitter
characterization;
[0016] FIG. 5 is a graph of a jitter tolerance mask for given Clock
and Data Recovery (CDR) settings;
[0017] FIG. 6 is a simulated fiber model for polarization
impact;
[0018] FIG. 7 is a graph illustrating Receiver Optical Signal to
Noise Ratio (ROSNR) versus the State of Polarization (SOP) for
differing values of Polarization Dependent Loss (PDL);
[0019] FIG. 8 is a graph illustrating ROSNR versus SOP for
differing values of PDL, number of spans, and no filtering;
[0020] FIG. 9 is a block diagram of an optical modem configured for
SOP characterization utilizing SOP injection in the datapath;
and
[0021] FIG. 10 is a block diagram of the optical modem configured
for SOP characterization utilizing data loaded into memory.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSURE
[0022] The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for
built-in jitter loading and state of polarization generation to
characterize optical transceivers and fiber channels. Specifically,
the present disclosure includes built-in test circuitry as well as
the use of existing functions in optical modems for characterizing
jitter and/or State of Polarization (SOP). For example, an existing
function can include a phase error detector in a modem transceiver
DSP Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). Advantageously,
the present disclosure provides a low cost, integrated
implementation. For jitter characterization, the present disclosure
provides high-resolution, operates in the phase domain (Amplitude
Modulation (AM) to Phase Modulation (PM) is not required), and can
be controlled and calibrated with the existing on-chip processor
and a digital interface is available. The integrated testing can be
used for lab, manufacturing, and/or field testing of jitter and
polarization.
Jitter and its Characterization
[0023] Both Tx and RX have embedded PLLs to generate clocks and
facilitate plesiochronous clocking. Historically, the standards
covered the client interfaces such as Ethernet. However, with
emerging standards, such as 400G-ZR OIF, for interoperability
between different coherent transceiver vendors over line side Dense
Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) networks, testing criteria
must be established early to increase chances of success at mass
deployment. The work in progress standards are targetting low-power
modems in small factor modules. Power envelopes such as Octal Small
Form Factor Pluggable (OSFP) and Quad Small Form Factor Pluggable
Double Density (QSFP-DD) are specified with stringent 15 W and 20 W
as total consumption. Since external test equipment is expensive,
bulky and hard to set up in the field, especially when plugged to
data-center switches. As well, the targeted form factors have a
minimal number of pins reserved for debugging, having a built-in
solution is highly preferable.
[0024] Accordingly, the present disclosure has the following
characteristics.
[0025] A memory-based testing solution that is programmable
digitally, allowing for sinusoidal waveforms to be summed since
jitter and the ability to generate jitter tolerance mask in one
shot, i.e., fast capture of the mask.
[0026] High-resolution with high data-rate and allowance for
re-usage in future standards.
[0027] Small foot-print, low-power, and built-in (integrated).
[0028] In a transmission system, there are three jitter transfer
behaviors that can be used to describe the effect on the quality of
the sampling clock.
[0029] First, jitter generation is the amount of jitter added to
the signal sampled with a clean clock. The source of jitter could
be random or deterministic.
[0030] Jitter transfer is the ratio of the output jitter over the
input jitter, expressed in terms of dBc, gain using the carrier as
the reference.
[0031] Jitter tolerance is a specification to indicate how much
jitter the system can tolerate at the input while maintaining the
desired performance at the specific Bit Error Rate (BER).
[0032] A jitter tolerance test, of the Clock Data Recovery (CDR),
is important at the system level since it is linked to the BER. It
includes modulating the edge of a reference clock with, for
example, a sinusoidal function (since it is well-defined by
amplitude and frequency) and measuring the ability of the receiver
to track. Phase noise is classically characterized in the frequency
domain. Converting from phase noise profile (noted as L(f)), to rms
(root-mean-square) jitter is done by integrating over the whole
band of frequencies (defined per standard), as follow:
RMS jiiter = 1 2 * .pi. * F c 2 * .intg. f 1 f 2 1 0 L ( f ) 1 0 df
( 1 ) ##EQU00001##
[0033] Therefore, the jitter tolerance mask is meant to test the
CDR's tracking ability (as described in Telcordia's GR-253-CORE,
September 2000, the contents of which are incorporated by reference
herein, section 5.6.2.2.2). In standards, such as in GR-253-CORE,
the frequency intervals for different network protocols are defined
as:
[0034] SONET OC-192: 50 kHz (f.sub.1) to 80 MHz (f.sub.2)
[0035] Fiber Channel: 637 kHz (f.sub.1) to 10 MHz (f.sub.2).
Sources of Jitter in Optical Layer 0 Networks
[0036] Coherent receivers must deal with two main sources of
jitter, one is specific to optical connections and the second is
due to typical PLL design. Jitter from optical links can be due
to:
[0037] Chromatic dispersion (CD), which its bulk part should be
compensated before being able to digitally recover timing
information, although a certain residual dispersion tolerance is
anticipated, but it comes with a penalty. In S. Oda et al.,
"Interplay between local oscillator phase noise and electrical
chromatic dispersion compensation in digital coherent transmission
system," 36th European Conference and Exhibition on Optical
Communication, Torino, 2010, pp. 1-3, when CD is convoluted with
the phase noise of the local oscillator it causes timing jitter.
Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) induced by optical line
amplifiers can shift the pulse from its ideal location (see V. S.
Grigoryan, et al., "Calculation of Timing and Amplitude Jitter in
Dispersion-Managed Optical Fiber Communications Using
Linearization," J. Lightwave Technol. 17, 1347-(1999)). Kerr
nonlinearity such as Self-Phase Modulation (SPM) and Cross-Phase
Modulation (XPM) have an effect on timing jitter as shown,
respectively, in M. Eiselt, et al., "Contribution of timing jitter
and amplitude distortion to XPM system penalty in WDM systems," in
IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 748-750,
June 1999, and M. Eiselt, "The impact of non-linear fiber effects
on fiber choice for ultimate transmission capacity," Optical Fiber
Communication Conference 2000, vol. 1, pp. 58-60 vol. 1, 2000. In
the case of 400GZR applications, short-reach up to 100 km, fiber
nonlinearities are not a substantial source of jitter.
[0038] From the electronics side or Radio Frequency (RF) on both
the Tx and Rx clocks, PLLs generate the different clocks needed for
the transmission and the reception. However, elements within the
PLLs are one of the main contributors for clock Periodic/Random
(see G. Hansel, et al., "Implementation of an economic jitter
compliance test for a multi-gigabit device on ATE," Test
Conference, 2004. Proceedings. ITC 2004. International, 2004). They
are part of the jitter generation of the circuit. The dominant
sources of jitter in PLLs are the Voltage Controlled Oscillator
(VCO) and Charge Pump (CP). With respect to the VCO, it is subject
to jitter accumulation which manifests itself as high phase noise
at low-frequency offsets with respect to the carrier frequency.
Other sources, such as thermal noise, and flicker noise in clock
buffers, internal aperture of the ADC, supply variation and
electromagnetic coupling, are listed in Feng Tan, et al., "Analysis
of Phase Noise and Timing Jitter in Crystal Oscillator,"
International Conference Communications, Circuits and Systems, pp.
1103-1106, 11-13 Jul. 2007.
Built-in Circuit and Operation Process
[0039] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system 10 for characterizing
jitter by modulating a transmitter clock with a test stimulus and
determining the measured impact. FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the
system 10 for characterizing jitter by modulating a recovered clock
with a test stimulus and determining the measured impact. The
system 10 includes a transmitter (Tx) 12 connected to a receiver
(Rx) 14 over a fiber link 16. The receiver 14 connects to a clock
recovery circuit 18. The transmitter 12 is connected to a
transmitter clock and the clock recovery circuit 18 provides a
recovered clock to the receiver 14 following the fiber link 14. The
system 10 can also include software-based monitoring 20 that can
operate the built-in circuit and control the characterization. In
FIG. 1, the system 10 can be used to characterize the jitter over
the fiber link 16 by modulating the transmitter clock with a test
stimulus and measuring the impact at the receiver 14. In FIG. 2,
the system 10 can be used to characterize the jitter supported by
the receiver 14 by adding a test stimulus in the recovered clock
and measuring the impact at the receiver 14. The test stimulus can
be a deterministic periodic signal including any of i) a multi-tone
signal having any spectral shape and distribution and ii) a
deterministic band-limited noise signal.
[0040] The system 10 includes circuitry (see FIG. 3) incorporated
in the transmitter 12 and/or the receiver 14 that is low cost, low
power, and low footprint enabling a built-in approach that can
generate jitter with fine resolution. The jitter generation is
deterministic since it can be programmed in a Look-Up Table (LUT).
However, the jitter generation can have any distribution (Gaussian,
sinusoidal . . . ) and any power spectral density. The circuitry
provides control of jitter amplitude in seconds or unit intervals,
waveform type (sine, square, or noise), and frequency.
[0041] FIG. 3 is a block diagram of circuitry associated with the
transmitter 12 and the receiver 14 for implementing jitter
generation for jitter characterization. The transmitter 12 includes
a transmitter PLL 30 implementing digital functions and connected
to a DAC 32 that provides an analog signal to an electro-optic
device 34. The electro-optic device 34 provides an optical signal,
e.g., coherently modulated, over the fiber link 16. The receiver 14
includes electro-optic device 36 that receives the optical signal
from the fiber link 16 and provides a corresponding analog signal
to an ADC 38 that connects to a DSP 40 configured, in part, to
perform phase error detection. The receiver 14 also includes a
receiver PLL 42. The DSP 40 can provide data related to the phase
error detection to the receiver PLL 42 and statistics circuitry 44
that connects to a processor 46.
[0042] The transmitter PLL 30 includes a phase detector 50, a
charge pump 52, a loop filter 54, a VCO 56, and a feedback loop 58
between an output of the VCO 56 and the phase detector 50. The
feedback loop 58 includes a Phase Interpolator (PI) 60 with an N
divider circuit 62 on the input. The PI 60 is connected to a
control circuit 64 that is connected to a LUT 66. The PI 60 allows
a circuit to adjust the phase of its sampling clocks in very fine
increments. The combination of the PI 60 and the N divider circuit
62 can be referred to as a phase interpolator.
[0043] The system 10 can be used to characterize the transmitter
12, the receiver 14, and/or the fiber link 16, i.e., jitter testing
for both modems and fiber channels. The system 10 includes proper
control of the phase interpolators at either the transmitter or the
receiver clock recovery circuitry, i.e., the transmitter PLL 30 or
the receiver PLL 42, for jitter generator and control of jitter
amplitude in seconds or unit intervals, waveform type (sine,
square, or noise), and frequency. Specifically, the transmitter PLL
30 or the receiver PLL 42 enable jitter injection at a specified
amount, type, frequency, etc. and the corresponding receiver 14 can
determine if the signal is recovered.
[0044] This approach provides a low cost/built-in jitter-loading
mechanism. Controlling the phase interpolator (the PI 60), with its
small instantaneous phase deviation, makes it possible to inject
jitter at high resolution. Since the PI 60 is part of the feedback
loop 58 at the transmitter PLL 30, any movement in phase is
translated into a movement in the VCO 56 clock (within PLL
bandwidth) feeding the DAC 32. That is, any movement in the phase
through the phase interpolator is translated by an equivalent
movement in the phase of the VCO 56. And since the loop is
filtered, then the deviation injected is cleaner.
[0045] A state machine, in the control 62, based on register
settings allows the different reading rate of the content of the
LUT 66. Such an approach permits the modulation of the transmitter
12 clock with a large range of carrier frequency at different
amplitude.
[0046] The system 10 can program one tone or multi-tone on both the
transmitter 12 and/or the receiver 14. Accordingly, a jitter
signature can be used to characterize the fiber link 16 or a
transceiver. In an embodiment, an automated tool in the system 10
utilizing the control 64 is able to produce a jitter mask based on
fixed jitter at the transmitter 12, to ensure compliance thereto.
In another embodiment, the automated tool in the system 10
utilizing the control 64 is able to produce a jitter mask based on
changing jitter at the transmitter 12 or the receiver 14 until a
certain metric threshold is crossed at the receiver 14, to
determine maximum jitter.
[0047] In FIGS. 1-3, the system 10 has three key elements, namely
i) the transmitter PLL 30 with the PI 60, integrated in the
feedback loop 58 used to inject a modulated eye, ii) re-usage of
existing clock recovery circuit (also called a clock-data recovery
circuitry (CDR)) in the receiver 14 for jitter reporting, and iii)
the software-based monitoring 20 automated to perform the
measurements.
[0048] The PI 60 is acting as an infinite delay line used to shift
clock phase within a data sampling window. The input to the PI 60
includes two clocks, having the same frequency, but with a
90.degree. phase difference. Each clock is multiplied by a code,
codes 1, 2 that are used to determine the phase shift at the
output. The codes 1, 2 can be based on the LUT 66. The weight, X is
set by digitally controlled by a DAC. Then the granularity is
determined by the resolution of the DAC (number of controlled bits)
and the frequency of the cross-coupled VCO 56. The phase modulator
output is non-linear due to the trigonometric element:
.PHI. = tan - 1 ( X 1 - X ) ( 2 ) ##EQU00002##
[0049] The idea in the jitter injecting process is that, at the
transmitter 12, there is a deliberate widening of the transition
areas in the eye diagram. With the original clock having the
following model:
sig=.alpha.*cos(w.sub.c*t) (3)
where .alpha. is the amplitude of the signal and
w.sub.c=2*.pi.*F.sub.c (carrier frequency). The noisy signal, or
phase modulated version, is the original signal with added phase
noise. It takes the form of:
sig.sub.noisy=.alpha.*cos(w.sub.c*t+.beta.*cos(w.sub.m*t)) (4)
where .beta. is the amplitude of the jitter and
w.sub.m=2*.pi.*F.sub.m(modulation frequency). The equivalent jitter
is seconds, peak-to-peak is defined as:
Jitter pp , seconds = 2 * .beta. 2 * .pi. * F c ( 5 )
##EQU00003##
[0050] The system 10 re-uses circuits available in a typical
receiver 14 for clock recovery for BER and jitter estimations. For
the former approach, such as a Gardener based detector can be used
(see Gardner, F. M., "A bpsk/qpsk timing-error detector for sampled
receivers," IEEE Trans. Commun. 1986, 34, 423-429), where the
timing error detected for the k symbol is given by:
e(k)=a.sub.I(k)+a.sub.Q(k) (6)
Where:
[0051]
a.sub.I(k)={y.sub.I((k-1)T+d.sub.k-1)-y.sub.I(kT+d.sub.k)}y.sub.I(-
kT-T/2+d.sub.k-1)
a.sub.Q(k)={y.sub.Q((k-1)T+d.sub.k-1)-y.sub.Q(kT+d.sub.k)}y.sub.Q(kT-T/2-
+d.sub.k-1)
And T is the period of symbol, d.sub.k is the estimate of the phase
at kT and y.sub.I and y.sub.Q are the received in-phase and
quadrature components. Jitter rms is estimated as:
Jitter rms = 1 T { E [ e ( .tau. 0 ) 2 ] } 1 / 2 slope ( .tau. 0 )
( 7 ) ##EQU00004##
where .tau..sub.0 corresponds to the positive zero crossing point
and the expectation is normalized to the unit interval.
[0052] Controlling the PI 60, with its small instantaneous phase
deviation, makes it possible to inject jitter at high resolution.
With the PI 60 being part of the transmitter PLL 30 feedback loop
58 at the transmitter 12, any movement in phase is translated into
a movement in the VCO clock feeding the DAC.
[0053] The state machine, in the control 64 block, based on
register settings allows the different reading rate of the content
of the LUT 66. Such methodology permits the modulation of the
transmitter clock with a large range of carrier frequency at
different amplitude. Comparing to J. Liang, et al., "Jitter
injection for on-chip jitter measurement in PI-based CDRs," 2017
IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CIC), Austin, Tex.,
2017, pp. 1-4, the system 10 is able to generate any form of phase
signal and not just square wave. As well, the fact that the PI 60
is in the feedback path of the PLL 30, the injection is clean.
[0054] FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an automated process 80 for jitter
characterization. The process 80 contemplates operation in the
system 10 for determining support for jitter. In the automated
process 80 jitter amplitude is increased until the threshold
associated with a metric is crossed to characterize jitter support.
In another embodiment, the jitter can be set to a specific value
and tested. The metrics may include a target BER, a
Forward-Error-Correction (FEC) hit, and a measured threshold on
jitter Root Mean Square (RMS).
[0055] The automated process 80 includes measuring base jitter at
the receiver (step S), applying a test stimulus in the transmitter
clocking system (step S2), and detecting changes in the jitter at
the receiver (step S3). The changes can be from the base jitter. If
a metric threshold is crossed (step S4), the automated process 80
can include increasing the test stimulus size (step S5) and
returning to step S2. If the metric threshold is not crossed (step
S4), the automated process 80 can include moving the frequency to
sweep (step S6) and resetting the test stimulus size and frequency
(step S7). If all frequencies have been swept (step S6), the
automated process 80 ends.
Jitter Characterization Application
[0056] One of the applications is transmitting a clean test
stimulus over the fiber link 16 and using the receiver PLL 42 as a
phase modulation detector in order to perform a jitter tolerance
measurement or jitter characterization. For the jitter tolerance
measurement, the application can include how much sinusoidal jitter
the CDR can tolerate, based on predefined metrics, i.e., BER, FEC,
jitter amounts, etc. For the jitter characterization, the
application can characterize the transmitter PLL 30 and the
receiver PLL 42.
[0057] The built-in circuitry and process can be used with digital
noise loading such as described in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No.
9,225,430, issued Dec. 29, 2015, and entitled "Digital noise
loading for optical receivers, and with commonly-assigned U.S. Pat.
No. 9,960,843, issued May 1, 2018, and entitled "Nonlinear
spatially resolved interferometer (NL-SRI) for characterizing
optical properties of deployed telecommunication cables," the
contents of each are incorporated by reference herein.
[0058] The built-in circuitry and process can also be used
internally in the lab, manufacturing, New Product Introduction
(NPI), etc. to characterize and calibrate products. Furthermore,
the built-in circuitry and process could be provided as an
application for customers.
[0059] The built-in circuitry and process can be used in the
following characterization scenarios:
[0060] Receiver with a golden transmitter, and back-to-back fiber,
such as for interoperability and NPI;
[0061] Transmitter with a golden receiver, and back-to-back fiber,
such as for interoperability and NPI;
Jitter Characterization Results
[0062] As discussed, one of the major electrical parameters used to
characterize systems performance is, at a given BER, the receiver's
ability to track jitter. It can be characterized either as an RMS
value in the time domain, or spectral density over the bandwidth
(dB/Hz) in the frequency domain.
[0063] As proof of concept, a back-to-back configuration was
implemented, i.e., a transmitter optical output signal goes
directly to the receiver using a patch optical fiber, while the
transmitter is golden, i.e., has low intrinsic jitter. FIG. 5 is a
graph of a jitter tolerance mask forgiven CDR settings. In FIG. 5,
when loading the LUT with various sinusoidal waveforms at different
frequencies, the CDR tolerance of the receiver to track the
injected spur are shown. The x-axis is defined as the frequency of
the spur and the y-axis, in pico-second (ps) or could be
unit-interval (UI). Jitter tolerance is defined as a mask, which is
specified as industry consensus among various vendors. The receiver
shall meet the tolerance mask. The latter can be programmed as part
of the software to ease debugging through a simple pass/fail
flag.
[0064] Since the injected test stimulus is independent of the
existing jitter sources, the accumulated jitter rms is derived as
follow:
Jitter Total = ( Total intrinsic jitter 2 + ( 1 0 L spur / 2 0 .pi.
f 0 ) 2 ) 1 / 2 ( 8 ) ##EQU00005##
with f.sub.0 being the frequency of the spur. Usually, a mask does
not apply to spurs, therefore broadband phase noise only. However,
another specification related to total jitter RMS (in ps) is
specified to combine the two.
SOP
[0065] Various advanced techniques are used including advanced
coherent modulation techniques, polarization multiplexing, flexible
grid spacing, and the like in optical line systems. With these
advanced techniques, optical line systems suffer new degrees of
susceptibility to transients on a time-varying optical channel,
including polarization transients, etc. As described herein, a
State of Polarization (SOP) transient source causes an SOP
transient which is anything that causes quick changes in the SOP of
signals on the fiber link 16. Coherent optical line systems are
configured to track SOP changes as part of normal operation, but
when quick SOP transients occur, these can be outside the tracking
ability, leading to errors, loss of framing, etc. Example SOP
transient sources can include, without limitation, external
vibrations (e.g., bridges, roads, railroads, wind, etc.), bad
splices on the optical fiber, weather (e.g., lightning, wind,
etc.), or the like. Usually, SOP transient sources behave
unpredictably and from unknown locations in the fiber. Further, SOP
transient sources can be time specific, seasonal, etc. Thus, it is
important in optical line systems to have some technique for
real-time, in-service measurement. SOP transients can be
particularly problematic with coherent transmission, and especially
difficult to localize/isolate given their nature in general. An
application using a polarimeter with an optical line system for SOP
transient localization is described in commonly-assigned U.S.
patent application Ser. No. 14/865,802 filed Sep. 25, 2015, and
entitled "SYSTEMS AND METHODS USING A POLARIMETER TO LOCALIZE STATE
OF POLARIZATION TRANSIENTS ON OPTICAL FIBERS," the contents of
which are incorporated by reference.
[0066] With the increased deployment of aerial fibers packaged as
OPtical Ground Wire (OPWG), which offer cost reduction compared to
buried ones, exposes the data transmitted through the bundled
fibers to fast SOP transients. Since OPWG external structure is
built to discharge the lightning, the Faraday effect on the two
polarizations is observed (see Edward Collett, "Polarized Light:
Fundamentals and Applications," (Optical Engineering, Vol 36), 1st
Edition. ISBN-10: 0824787293). An in-depth study performed, in
Thomas Brugiere et al., "Polarization Activity Monitoring of an
Aerial Fiber Link in a Live Network", OFC, Anaheim, Calif., pp.
1-3, 2016, showed a maximum SOP of 115,200 krad/s; while in buried
fibers, in L. E. Nelson, M. Birk, S. L. Woodward, and P. Magill,
"Field Measurements of Polarization Transients on a Long-Haul
Terrestrial Link," in IEEE Photonic Society 24th Annual Meeting
(IEEE, 2011), pp. 833-834, the maximum SOP rate monitored is in the
order of tens of krad/s. Other causes of SOP can be mechanical
vibration of the fiber cable due to trains or construction
work.
[0067] Moving from private networks (closed cables and
transponders) to both interoperable transponders (white box,
400GZR) and open cables (submarine) are current trends in optical
networking. Therefore, the need for more physical level tests to
characterize modems/channels, consisting of both measuring
BER/Noise tolerance and eye-diagram/jitter tolerance, is becoming
vital for network operators.
[0068] In addition to the built-in circuitry and process for jitter
characterization, the present disclosure includes built-in
circuitry and process for polarization tracking testing.
Specifically, testing both modems (e.g., receiver 14 polarization
tracking capability) and the fiber link 16 (i.e., the interaction
between the fiber and fast SOP tolerance of receivers). As is shown
herein, the penalty seen at the receiver 14 changes with different
link parameters. Therefore, custom characterization can be of great
benefit for network planning.
[0069] FIG. 6 is a simulated fiber model 100 for polarization
impact. Here, a Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ROADM)
node 102 transmits a signal that is affected by a transfer matrix
HPDL that characterizes Polarization Dependent Loss (PDL) as well
as ASE noise added over the channel. The present disclosure
includes the ability to adjust the SOP at a transmitter 12 for
corresponding measurements at a receiver 14.
[0070] FIG. 7 is a graph illustrating Receiver Optical Signal to
Noise Ratio (ROSNR) versus State of Polarization (SOP) for
differing values of Polarization Dependent Loss (PDL). FIG. 8 is a
graph illustrating ROSNR versus SOP for differing values of PDL,
number of spans, and no filtering.
[0071] The built-in circuitry and process for polarization tracking
testing apply SOP rotation by multiplying the upcoming data on the
X/Y polarization by the following matrix:
T = [ T xx T yx T xy T yy ] ( 9 ) ##EQU00006##
with T.sub.xx, T.sub.xy, T.sub.yx, and T.sub.yy being one complex
tap.
[0072] FIG. 9 is a block diagram of an optical modem 200 configured
for SOP characterization utilizing SOP injection in the datapath.
FIG. 10 is a block diagram of the optical modem 200 configured for
SOP characterization utilizing data loaded into memory.
Specifically, FIGS. 9 and 10 provide two possible realizations,
FIG. 9 with the circuit in the datapath and FIG. 10 with loading
data into memory (with the disadvantage that the data will be
repeated and that might be a problem based on the adaptive
filtering used in the receiver 14). The optical modem 200 can
include the transmitter 12 and the receiver 14 described herein,
including the built-in circuitry for jitter characterization.
[0073] The optical modem includes a transmitter DSP 202 and a
receiver DSP 204. The transmitter DSP 2020 connects to an
Electro-optic (EO) device 206 that optically communicates over the
fiber link 16 to an EO device 208 that connects to the receiver DSP
204. The receiver DSP 204 includes a filtering block 210 with Fast
Fourier Transform (FFT), Inverse FFT (IFFT), adaptive filters, etc.
The filtering block 210 connects to a Carrier Recovery (CR) and
Signal Decode (SD) block 212 that connects to a FEC block 214. The
receiver DSP 204 is configured to recover a signal transmitted by
the EO device 206 over the fiber link 16.
[0074] The transmitter DSP 202 is configured to enable SOP testing.
In FIG. 9, the transmitter DSP 202 includes a filtering block 220
that connects to a time-domain SOP injection block 222. This
approach injects SOP changes in the datapath. The time-domain SOP
injection block 222 can be controlled based on firmware 224 that
receives feedback from the FEC block 214. Based on data set by the
user and the testing mode, the firmware 224 will generate a general
Jones matrix below in Eq. (10) and copy data into an array inside
the circuitry. Another control block will read the array in
sequence and apply the new values to the tap registers (T above)
when change required:
H rotation only = [ cos ( .theta. ) exp ( i .PHI. ) sin ( .theta. )
exp ( i .PHI. ) - sin ( .theta. ) exp ( - i .PHI. ) cos ( .theta. )
exp ( - i .PHI. ) ] ( 10 ) ##EQU00007##
[0075] In FIG. 10, the transmitter DSP 202 includes a memory block
226 with preloaded data for SOP changes.
[0076] With the availability of transmitter and receiver static
filters, the possibility to add more impairment is also possible.
At least the following configurations are possible
[0077] Differential Group Delay (DGD)/SOP/DGD
[0078] DGD/SOP
[0079] SOP/DGD
[0080] It will be appreciated that some embodiments described
herein may include one or more generic or specialized processors
("one or more processors") such as microprocessors; Central
Processing Units (CPUs); Digital Signal Processors (DSPs):
customized processors such as Network Processors (NPs) or Network
Processing Units (NPUs), Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), or the
like; Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs); and the like along
with unique stored program instructions (including both software
and firmware) for control thereof to implement, in conjunction with
certain non-processor circuits, some, most, or all of the functions
of the methods and/or systems described herein. Alternatively, some
or all functions may be implemented by a state machine that has no
stored program instructions, or in one or more Application Specific
Integrated Circuits (ASICs), in which each function or some
combinations of certain of the functions are implemented as custom
logic or circuitry. Of course, a combination of the aforementioned
approaches may be used. For some of the embodiments described
herein, a corresponding device in hardware and optionally with
software, firmware, and a combination thereof can be referred to as
"circuitry configured or adapted to," "logic configured or adapted
to," etc. perform a set of operations, steps, methods, processes,
algorithms, functions, techniques, etc. on digital and/or analog
signals as described herein for the various embodiments.
[0081] Moreover, some embodiments may include a non-transitory
computer-readable storage medium having computer readable code
stored thereon for programming a computer, server, appliance,
device, processor, circuit, etc. each of which may include a
processor to perform functions as described and claimed herein.
Examples of such computer-readable storage mediums include, but are
not limited to, a hard disk, an optical storage device, a magnetic
storage device, a ROM (Read Only Memory), a PROM (Programmable Read
Only Memory), an EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), an
EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), Flash
memory, and the like. When stored in the non-transitory
computer-readable medium, software can include instructions
executable by a processor or device (e.g., any type of programmable
circuitry or logic) that, in response to such execution, cause a
processor or the device to perform a set of operations, steps,
methods, processes, algorithms, functions, techniques, etc. as
described herein for the various embodiments.
[0082] Although the present disclosure has been illustrated and
described herein with reference to preferred embodiments and
specific examples thereof, it will be readily apparent to those of
ordinary skill in the art that other embodiments and examples may
perform similar functions and/or achieve like results. All such
equivalent embodiments and examples are within the spirit and scope
of the present disclosure, are contemplated thereby, and are
intended to be covered by the following claims.
* * * * *