Abstract

As link bit rates within and between data centers continue to increase, it is challenging to maintain low power consumption while accommodating ever-tighter optical link budgets. Although power consumption can be reduced by co-packaging optical transceivers with electrical switches and employing optical switching, both approaches increase losses, further compressing link budgets. Local oscillator-based coherent receivers traditionally employed for long-haul systems provide a path to higher bit rates and improved link budgets, but their power consumption is excessive owing to high-speed digital signal processing (DSP). We discuss alternative designs for coherent receivers, such as DSP-free coherent receivers and Kramers–Kronig (KK) receivers. We compare them in terms of receiver sensitivity, power consumption, and complexity.

Integrated SOAs enable energy-efficient intra-data center coherent links

Aaron Maharry, Hector Andrade, Stephen Misak, Junqian Liu, Yujie Xia, Aaron Wissing, Ghazal Movaghar, Viviana Arrunategui-Norvick, Evan D. Chansky, Xinhong Du, Adel A. M. Saleh, James F. Buckwalter, Larry Coldren, and Clint L. Schow
Opt. Express 31(11) 17480-17493 (2023)

Demonstration of a low-power, local-oscillator-less, and DSP-free coherent receiver for data center interconnects

Rashmi Kamran, Nandakumar Nambath, Sarath Manikandan, Rakesh Ashok, Rachit Jain, Nandish Bharat Thaker, and Shalabh Gupta
Appl. Opt. 59(7) 2031-2041 (2020)

DSP-free ‘coherent-lite’ transceiver for next generation single wavelength optical intra-datacenter interconnects

Mohamed Morsy-Osman, Mohammed Sowailem, Eslam El-Fiky, Tristan Goodwill, Thang Hoang, Stephane Lessard, and David V. Plant
Opt. Express 26(7) 8890-8903 (2018)

Experimental demonstration of advanced modulation formats for data center networks on 200 Gb/s lane rate IMDD links

Jinlong Wei, Talha Rahman, Stefano Calabrò, Nebojsa Stojanovic, Liang Zhang, Changsong Xie, Zhicheng Ye, and Maxim Kuschnerov
Opt. Express 28(23) 35240-35250 (2020)

Chaotic phase noise-like encryption based on geometric shaping for coherent data center interconnections

Wenjun Zeng, Chongfu Zhang, Xinshuai Liang, Yufeng Luo, Xue Wang, and Kun Qiu
Opt. Express 32(2) 1595-1608 (2024)