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Abstract—In this paper, we investigate the design of a bandwidth architectures is the management of the optical signal
field-programmable-gate-array (FPGA) based optical orthogonal degradation, and therefore, it has become necessary to develop
frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) transmitter implement- novel techniques and modulation formats that are both spectrally
ing real-time digital signal processing at 21.4 GSample/s. The trans-
mitter was utilized to generate 8.34 Gb/s QPSK-OFDM signals for efficient and resilient to fiber impairments. One such promising
direct detection. We study the impact of the finite resolutions of transmission technique is optical orthogonal frequency-division
the inverse fast Fourier transform cores and the digital-to-analog multiplexing (OFDM). This modulation format is widely used
converters on the system performance. Furthermore, we describe a in wireless communications such as long-term evolution (LTE),
transmission experiment over 800 and 1600 km of uncompensated Wi-Fi, and WiMax, and has recently gained a great deal of in-
standard fiber with negligible optical SNR penalties and bit error
rate < 10−3 . terest in optical communications from both the industrial and
academic communities [1]–[23]. OFDM consists of dividing the
Index Terms—Digital-to-analog converter (DAC), digital sig- bandwidth of the channel into many noninterfering (orthogonal)
nal processing (DSP), field-programmable gate array (FPGA), in-
verse fast Fourier transform (IFFT), optical orthogonal frequency- subchannels, which operate at a fraction of the aggregate speed
division multiplexing (OFDM), optical transmission. of the main channel, and therefore, are less prone to fiber distor-
tion. In addition to resilience, OFDM can achieve high spectral
I. INTRODUCTION efficiency as it allows for the utilization of advanced coding
OMMUNICATION networks form the backbone of the formats such as quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). Fur-
C 21st century economy and modern society, providing rapid
access to and exchange of information around the globe. In the
thermore, the multiband technique, in which many OFDM bands
can be aggregated within a single optical channel, can relax the
past few years, there has been a considerable increase in de- speed and bandwidth requirements of the signal converters while
mand for higher bandwidth and more reliable data and voice providing finer switching granularity and better network service
services mainly driven by bandwidth-hungry applications such flexibility [2].
as multimedia and online social networks. This development There are two different methods of implementing optical
has put serious strains on communication networks and ex- OFDM systems: direct detection (DD) and coherent detection
posed the limitations of current network architectures. Higher (CO). The transmitter architecture of the two schemes is essen-
capacity next-generation networks, which are low cost and re- tially the same and they only differ in the receiver design. DD-
liable, are needed to satisfy future bandwidth and flexibility OFDM has the advantage of a simpler and cheaper design, as it
requirements. However, a major obstacle to implement higher only requires a single photodiode and DSP at the receiver albeit
with reduced sensitivity and spectral efficiency [3]–[5]. Coher-
Manuscript received October 14, 2009; revised December 11, 2009; accepted
December 28, 2009. Date of publication March 4, 2010; date of current version
ent detection, on the other hand (CO-OFDM), achieves better
October 6, 2010. This work was supported in part by Intel Corporation, in part sensitivity and spectral efficiency, but needs a complex and more
by the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under Grant expensive receiver due to the requirement for phase and polar-
EP/C523865/1, in part by the EU FP7 BONE (Building the Future Optical Net-
work in Europe), and in part by the EU FP6 IST NOBEL2 (Next generation
ization tracking [6]–[8]. Major advances in term of spectral
Optical network for Broadband European Leadership). The work of P. M. Watts efficiency, range, and resilience have been achieved recently for
was supported by a research fellowship awarded by the Royal Commission for both schemes. For instance, data rates between 10 and 100 Gb/s
the Exhibition of 1851.
Y. Benlachtar, R. Bouziane, and R. I. Killey are with the Department of Elec-
have been experimentally demonstrated using DD-OFDM in
tronic and Electrical Engineering, University College London, London, WC1E short-, medium-, and long-haul transmissions [9]–[11]. Simi-
7JE, U.K. (e-mail: y.benlachtar@ee.ucl.ac.uk). larly, 25–120 Gb/s coherent OFDM has been implemented in
P. M. Watts is with the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge,
Cambridge, CB3 0FD, U.K. (e-mail: philip.watts@cl.cam.ac.uk).
long- and ultralong-haul transmissions [12]–[14]. Wavelength-
P. A. Milder, R. J. Koutsoyannis, J. C. Hoe, and M. Püschel are with the De- division multiplexing (WDM) and multiband OFDM experi-
partment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, ments with data rates up to 1 Tb/s and spectral efficiency of
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA (e-mail: pam@ece.cmu.edu).
M. Glick is with Intel Research Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
7 b/(s·Hz) have been shown in [15] and [16]. Furthermore,
(e-mail: madeleine.glick@intel.com). OFDM technology is ideally suited to provide the next genera-
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online tion of 100 G Ethernet services in data centers and LANs [17],
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSTQE.2010.2041899
[18], and may be scaled to allow for future Ethernet standards
TABLE I
rms ERROR AND SNR FOR IFFT 128 CORES
and calculate RMSE and SNR for each vector. For each design,
we report the mean and standard deviation of the 512 values
for RMSE and SNR. We calculate RMSE and SNR as follows,
where S is the measured output vector and T is the expected
output vector:
N −1
|Sn − Tn |2
RMSE =
n =0
N
N −1
|Tn |2
SNR = N −1n =0 2
.
n =0 |Sn − Tn |
G. Pruning
(represented as black circles). We observe that only the 4-, 6-,
Depending on which subcarriers are utilized, a number of
and 8-bit designs fit on our target FPGA.
IFFT inputs will always be zero. Because we consider fully
unrolled designs, this makes it possible to prune out a number
E. Searching Across a Space of IFFT Algorithms of unnecessary operations from the early stages of the IFFT,
Although algorithms such as Pease are frequently used in resulting in a modest decrease in required area. We do this by
the hardware implementation of IFFTs, there are many others adding a simple wrapper around the IFFT core and allowing the
we may consider. Typically, these algorithms recursively break synthesis tool to perform simplification. In Fig. 2 (white data
down a large IDFT into smaller ones. This type of algorithm markers), we evaluate this technique on both IFFT algorithms
can reduce the arithmetic cost, but results in a structure with discussed earlier, assuming that only a quarter of the IFFT inputs
less regularity. are nonzero. On average, we observe an 8.3% decrease in the
Using Spiral, we are able to explore many recursive IFFT number of slices.
algorithms and flatten each into an unrolled structure. Then, we
can search over many alternatives to find the algorithm with the IV. SIMULATION MODEL AND RESULTS
lowest cost. For this system, the best algorithm found is a mix of
In this section, we examine the theoretical impact of the lim-
radix 8 and radix 16 IFFTs, resulting in 2192 adders/subtractors
ited resolution of the tandem IFFT-DAC on the performance of
and 664 multipliers (a reduction of more than 25% of the multi-
the transmitter described in Section II. The simulation model
pliers used in the Pease implementation). Again, we use Spiral
was setup as follows. First, the hardware description of the DSP
to generate designs based on this algorithm for various values
section, including the Spiral-generated IFFT cores, was obtained
of fixed-point precision. In Fig. 3, we plot the number of slices
and simulated using ModelSim. The digital output was then fed
needed for each design (as black triangles). We observe that
to a MATLAB model that emulated a variable-resolution DAC.
designs based on this algorithm require on average 37% fewer
An ideal DAC with a flat frequency response and negligible
slices than their Pease IFFT counterparts. Designs of up to 12
electrical noise was considered in the simulation. Finally, an
bits of precision are able to fit on the target FPGA, an improve-
ideal receiver model that includes a true FFT (64-bit floating
ment of four bits.
point) and a noiseless ADC was used to decode and recover the
OFDM data.
F. Numerical Accuracy First, only the analog path was simulated and no optical trans-
In Table I, we present an analysis of the root-mean-squared mission was considered to isolate the impact of hardware reso-
error (RMSE) and SNR for the IFFT designs generated from this lution from optical implementation penalties. The quality of the
algorithm. For each design, we perform 512 IFFT computations signals was assessed from the resulting constellations through
BENLACHTAR et al.: REAL-TIME DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING FOR THE GENERATION 1239
Fig. 5. EVM versus IFFT resolution for 3-, 4-, and 6-bit DACs.
Fig. 4. Simulated electrical OFDM spectra using IFFT resolution of: (a) 8-bit, The performance does not improve for higher IFFT precisions
(b) 10-bit, (c) 12-bit, and (d) 16-bit.
and is limited by the DAC resolution. A 3 dB improvement can
be observed in the case of a 4-bit DAC by increasing the IFFT
resolution from 8 to 10 bits. Increasing precision of the IFFT
the use of the error vector magnitude (EVM), which is a measure
beyond 10 bits only leads to marginal improvements (0.2 dB).
of distances between the ideal constellation and the symbol po-
It can be observed in the case of a 6-bit DAC that significant
sitions, normalized to the peak constellation symbol magnitude
improvements of 9 and 11.4 dB can be achieved by increasing
vm ax . The EVM is given by [29]
the IFFT resolution from 8 to 10 and 12 bits, respectively. Only
N 2 2
marginal improvements can be achieved by deploying higher
(1/N ) k =1 Ik − I¯k + Qk − Q̄k precision IFFT. Therefore, it can be deduced that the optimum
EVM = IFFT resolution for a good tradeoff between precision and com-
|vm ax | plexity is 10 bits for both 3- and 4-bit DACs and 12 bits for
where Ik and Qk are the components of the kth received symbol 6-bit DACs. Additionally, Fig. 5 shows that the overall system
and I¯k and Q̄k are the components of the kth ideal symbol. performance can be significantly improved by deploying a 6-bit
Fig. 4 shows the OFDM spectra taken at the output of the DAC (assuming quantization noise is the dominant source of
DAC and obtained using 8-, 10-, 12-, and 16-bit IFFT with an noise). For instance, increasing the DAC resolution from 4 to
ideal DAC (no quantization noise). Unwanted frequency compo- 6 bits improves the EVM of the system by over 10 dB, assuming
nents across the 10.7 GHz bandwidth, in addition to the OFDM IFFT resolutions of 12 bits or more.
band, can be observed in Fig. 4(a) using 8-bit IFFT. These After investigating the analog path, the theoretical optical
tones are reduced in intensity and occupy a smaller bandwidth performance is studied next. The transmitter shown in Fig. 1(a)
(0–3 GHz) when the IFFT resolution is increased to 10 bits [see was simulated using an ideal optical filter (brick-wall filter)
Fig. 4(b)]. The unwanted tones become negligible at 12-bit IFFT to suppress one sideband. The receiver consisted of an ideal
(0–1.5 GHz) and disappear when the resolution is increased to 11 GHz optical filter, a photodiode, a 10.7-GHz electrical filter,
16 bits (see Fig. 4(c) and (d), respectively). and the ideal OFDM decoder previously described. The optical
Fig. 5 shows the obtained EVM of the system against IFFT SNR (OSNR) (0.1 nm RBW) versus EVM for 3-, 4-, and 6-bit
precision for 3-, 4-, and 6-bit DACs. In the case of a 3-bit DAC, DACs is shown in Fig. 6. The optimum IFFT precision derived
an improvement of 1.3 dB in EVM is obtained by increasing before was used in each case, i.e., 10-bit IFFT for the 3- and
the IFFT resolution from 8 to 10 bits. The unwanted frequency 4-bit DACs and 12-bit IFFT for the 6-bit DAC.
components result from the limited resolution of the IFFT core, It can be observed that the required OSNR for a bit error rate
as observed in Fig. 4. This is explained by the fact that at every (BER) of 10−3 (EVM = –9.8 dB) in the case of the 3-bit DAC
stage of the IFFT operation, some of the precision (1 bit) is is 10.6 dB. In the case of 4- and 6-bit DAC resolutions, the
sacrificed after additions/multiplications to avoid system over- required OSNR is 9.8 dB.
flow. The loss of precision is more acute for lower resolution
arithmetic that leads to larger errors, and hence, more unwanted V. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION AND TRANSMISSION
tones. These tones may interfere with the OFDM data and result
in a degradation of the performance. To find out to what extent A. Analog Characterization
the IFFT resolution impacts the overall performance of a real In this section, the operation of the DSP and the analog front
system, simulations were carried out using limited IFFT and end of the transmitter was experimentally investigated. The out-
DAC resolution at the encoder coupled with an ideal decoder. put of the DAC shown in Fig. 1(a) was directly connected to a
1240 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 16, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010
8- and 10-bit IFFT cores are shown. The BER was obtained
from the EVM using the equation presented in [29] that assumes
Gaussian statistics. The noise in our system is Gaussian-like and
consists of a convolution of different sources of noise such as
the DAC, the RF amplifier, and the sampling scope.
It can be observed from Fig. 8 that the EVM increases with
increasing subcarrier frequencies due to the DAC frequency roll-
Fig. 7. Experimental electrical OFDM spectra using: (a) 8-bit IFFT and (b)
10-bit IFFT.
off. In other words, the lower frequency subchannels have better
SNR than the higher frequency ones. In theory and according to
Fig. 5, the improvement in the EVM by increasing the IFFT res-
olution from 8 to 10 bits is expected to be between 1.3 and 3 dB
50-GSample/s, 8-bit resolution real-time sampling oscilloscope considering that the DAC effective number of bits is between
(electrical back-to-back measurements). The obtained signals 3 and 4 (estimated effective number of bits (ENOBs) ≈ 3.4).
were demodulated by offline DSP using the same ideal receiver It can be observed from Fig. 8 that a 1.5 dB improvement was
model described in the previous section. Synchronization was achieved for the lower frequency subcarriers, which agrees with
carried out by sending two consecutive OFDM symbols carry- the simulations. The improvement in the higher frequency sub-
ing identical known data (training symbols) every 217 bits. The channels was only 0.5 because of the relatively higher DAC
two symbols were then correlated at the receiver to achieve syn- electrical noise, which was not included in the simulations. The
chronization. It is shown in Fig. 3 that IFFT resolutions up to overall improvement in the average EVM was approximately
12 bits can be deployed on the target FPGA. However, a 12-bit 1.1 dB. In the following section, all the results are for the 10-bit
IFFT core consumed almost 100% of the logic and could not be IFFT design.
used in conjunction with other DSP functions, and hence, the
experimental investigation was limited to 8- and 10-bit designs.
B. Optical Characterization and Transmission
Fig. 7 shows the electrical spectra for the 8- and 10-bit IFFT
designs obtained by taking the Fourier transform of the mea- The analog part of the real-time transmitter was connected
sured time-domain waveforms. The unwanted frequency com- to a MMZ and an optical filter [see Fig. 1(a)], and used to
ponents can be observed and, as expected from the simulations generate an 8.36 Gb/s SSB optical OFDM signal for DD. An
(see Fig. 4), are less pronounced in the case of the 10-bit IFFT erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) was deployed before the
design. The discrepancies between the simulated and the ex- optical filter to boost the signal and compensate for its loss.
perimental spectra are mainly due to the transfer functions and The output QPSK constellation and the optical spectrum of the
electrical noise of the DAC, the RF amplifier, and the sampling SSB OFDM signal (0.01 nm RBW) are shown in Fig. 9 (inset)
scope. The frequency roll-off due to the DAC can be clearly seen (optical back-to-back).
in Fig. 7, where the difference in amplitude between the high- The EVM for each subchannel in the optical back-to-back
and low-frequency subcarriers is approximately 5 dB. This leads case is shown in Fig. 11 (squares). A 1 dB implementation
to a different SNR for the different subchannels resulting in a penalty can be observed between the electrical and optical back-
difference in quality. This is observed in Fig. 8 where the EVM to-back performance through comparison with the 10-bit IFFT
and the corresponding BER of the different subchannels using curve shown in Fig. 8. The EVM against OSNR (0.1 nm RBW)
BENLACHTAR et al.: REAL-TIME DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING FOR THE GENERATION 1241
VI. DISCUSSION
Fig. 10. Optical back-to-back EVM against OSNR.
We have assessed the impact of the limited IFFT and DAC
resolutions on the performance of optical OFDM systems in
of the transmitter was measured in the optical back-to-back Sections IV and V. Table II is a summary of these results and
configuration using noise loading and is shown in Fig. 10. The can be used as a guide for the design of real-time implemen-
circle markers show the average EVM across all 25 subchannels tations of such systems. The optimum IFFT resolution relates
where it can be observed that an EVM of –9.8 dB (BER = 10−3 ) to the best tradeoff between the output precision and the DSP
was measured for an OSNR of 17 dB. The dashed and the solid complexity. The analog EVM represents the quality of the sig-
lines represent the theoretical curves for a 3- and 4-bit DAC, nal at the output of the DAC. These parameters are valid for
respectively. These were generated using a 50-GHz Gaussian the proposed transmission design and may change if, for in-
optical filter and a 16-GHz electrical Bessel filter (fifth order) at stance, all subcarriers are used to convey data or the IFFT size
the receiver. It can be seen that the average EVM of the system is increases. An N-point IFFT consists of log2 (N) stages of mul-
worse than the 3-bit DAC theoretical curve because of the DAC tiplication, and therefore, an increase in the IFFT size leads to
roll-off. We expect the average EVM of the system to be in the larger errors due to more rounding and truncations. The DAC
same range as the first five subchannels should the DAC roll-off frequency roll-off also affects the performance of OFDM trans-
preequalization be deployed, and this is in good agreement with mitters that require a relatively flat frequency response. This
the theory considering that the ENOB is approximately 3.4 [see can be seen in the optical back-to-back performance shown in
Fig. 10 (triangles)]. Fig. 11, where the low-frequency channels are error free while
The optical OFDM transmitter was used in a recirculating the high-frequency ones have a BER of approximately 10−6 .
loop experiment, as shown in Fig. 9. The loop consisted of an Digital preequalization of the DAC response is relatively easy
80 km span of standard SMF and no optical dispersion compen- to implement and, although results in a slightly lower effective
sation was deployed. The signal was circulated 10 and 20 times number of bits, will result in an improvement in the system
for total distances of 800 and 1600 km with –3 dBm launch performance.
1242 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 16, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010
TABLE II
DESIGN PARAMETERS FOR DIFFERENT DAC RESOLUTIONS TO GENERATE 8.34 Gb/s SSB DD-OFDM
VII. CONCLUSION [13] Q. Yang, Y. Tang, Y. Ma, and W. Shieh, “Experimental demonstration and
numerical simulation of 107-Gb/s high spectral efficiency coherent optical
We have investigated the design of a 21.4-GSample/s real- OFDM,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 168–176, Feb. 1, 2009.
time FPGA-based transmitter used to generate 8.34 Gb/s digi- [14] S. L. Jansen, I. Morita, T. C. W. Schenk, N. Takeda, and H. Tanaka,
“121.9-Gb/s PDM-OFDM transmission with 2-b/s/Hz spectral efficiency
tally upconverted DD-OFDM signals. We have theoretically and over 1000 km of SSMF,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 177–188,
experimentally studied the impact of the finite IFFT and DAC Feb. 2009.
resolutions on the performance of the system. The 8.34 Gb/s [15] H. Takahashi, A. Al Amin, S. L. Jansen, I. Morita, and H. Tanaka, “DWDM
transmission with 7.0-bit/s/Hz spectral efficiency using 8×65.1-Gbit/s
signals were generated and transmitted over 800 and 1600 km coherent PDM-OFDM signals,” presented at the Opt. Fiber Commun.
of uncompensated standard fiber with negligible penalties and (OFC), San Diego, CA, 2009, Paper PDPB7.
BER < 10−3 using a 10-bit IFFT architecture and a 4-bit DAC. [16] Y. Ma, Q. Yang, Y. Tang, S. Chen, and W. Shieh, “1-Tb/s per channel
coherent optical OFDM transmission with subwavelength bandwidth ac-
We have shown that the transmitter performance can be signif- cess,” presented at the Opt. Fiber Commun. (OFC), San Diego, CA, 2009,
icantly improved by deploying a 12-bit IFFT core and a 6-bit Paper PDPC1.
DAC. This study also shows that FPGAs enable the prototyping [17] M. Yiran, T. Yan, and W. Shieh, “107 Gb/s transmission over multimode
fiber with coherent optical OFDM using center launching technique,”
and investigation of real-time multigigabit per second OFDM presented at the Eur. Conf. Opt. Com. (ECOC), Vienna, Austria, 2009,
in optical systems. Paper 3.5.2.
[18] D. Qian, N. Cvijetic, J. Hu, and T. Wang, “108 Gb/s OFDMA-PON with
polarization multiplexing and direct-detection,” presented at the Opt. Fiber
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Commun. (OFC), San Diego, CA, 2009, Paper PDPD5.
[19] Q. Yang, S. Chen, Y. Ma, and W. Shieh, “Real-time reception of multi-
The authors would like to thank Prof. Bayvel and Dr. Savory gigabit coherent optical OFDM signals,” Opt. Exp., vol. 17, pp. 7985–
for their useful comments and discussions. 7992, 2009.
[20] Y. Benlachtar, P. M. Watts, R. Bouziane, P. Milder, D. Rangaraj,
A. Cartolano, R. Koutsoyannis, J. C. Hoe, M. Püschel, M. Glick, and
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BENLACHTAR et al.: REAL-TIME DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING FOR THE GENERATION 1243
Yannis Benlachtar (M’06) received the B.Eng. de- James C. Hoe received the Ph.D. degree in elec-
gree (with a Diploma in industrial studies) in elec- trical engineering and computer science from Mas-
tronic and electrical engineering from Loughborough sachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, in
University, Loughborough, U.K., in 2001, and the 2000.
Ph.D. degree from the University College London He is currently a Professor and an Associate De-
(UCL), London, U.K., in 2006. partment Head of Electrical and Computer Engineer-
Between 1999 and 2000, he was engaged in soft- ing at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, where
ware development and project management at Nor- he is the Head of the OpenSPARC Center. His re-
tel Networks Laboratories, Maidenhead, U.K., where search interests include computer architecture and
he was awarded a scholarship for his exceptional digital hardware design, including the specific areas
achievements. Since 2006, he has been a Research of fault-tolerant processors and systems, high-level
Fellow in the Optical Networks Group, Department of Electronic and Electrical hardware description and synthesis, and computer simulation and prototyping
Engineering, UCL, where he is engaged in the field of impairment pre- and post- technologies. He is the Co-Director of the Computer Architecture Laboratory,
compensation and advanced modulation formats in fiber-optic communications. Carnegie Mellon, and is affiliated with the Center for Silicon System Imple-
His current research interests include the development of advanced modulation mentation and the Carnegie Mellon CyLab.
techniques such as orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing for short- and
long-haul transmissions.