1154 IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETIERS, VOL. 4, NO.

10, OCTOBER 1992

optical heterodyne PSK transmission systems,” J . Lightwave Tech-

nol., vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 309-322, 1990.
[41 R. S. Vodhanel et al., “Performance of directly modulated DFB
lasers in 10 Gb/s ASK, FSK, and DPSK lightwave systems,” J .

tt
+ Lightwave Technol.,vol. 8, no. 9, pp. 1379-1386, 1990.

!i
T. Naito et al., “4 Gbit/s, 233-km optical fiber transmission
++ experiment using newly proposed direct-modulation PSK,” Elec-
+
tron. Lett., vol. 26, no. 20, pp. 1734-1736, 1990.
-I0 + B. Clesca et al., “Highly sensitive 565 Mb/s DPSK heterodyne
+ transmission experiment using direct current modulation of a DFB
-20 + laser transmitter,” ZEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 3, pp. 838-841,

j I -30
ab&& :$ooo,
++
+

0 0 000
171

40
0 5 10 15
forward p o w r CmWI +
Fig. 4. Reflections from transmission fiber with (0)and without (+)
DPSK modulation as a function of forward traveling power [milliwatts].
tolerance of PSK, DPSK, and CPFSK transmission to
deviations of the modulation amplitude from its optimum
is also discussed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions
of J. Bauer, H. Albrecht, C. Wahl, J. Wittmann, and H.
Michel.
REFERENCES
[I] M. Shirasaki et al., “Fiber transmission properties of optical pulses
produced through direct phase modulation of DFB laser diode,”
Electron. Lett., vol. 24, no. 8, pp. 487-488, 1988.
[2] R. S. Vodhanel et al., “5 Gb/s direct optical DPSK modulation of
a 1530-nm DFB laser,” ZEEE Photon. Techn. Lett., vol. 1, pp.
218-220, Aug. 1989.
[3] T. Chikama et al., “Modulation and demodulation techniques in
[81
Sept. 1991.
G. Jacobsen, “Performance of heterodyne DM-DPSK systems with
tight IF filtering,” Electron. Lett., vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 254-256, 1992.
B. Borchert et al., “High performance 1.55 p m QW-MCRW DFB
lasers,” Japan J . Appl. Phys., vol. 30, no. 9B, pp. L1650-L1652,
1991.
E. Meissner and H. Rodler, “Engineered 565 Mb/s DPSK hetero-
dyne receiver with a sensitivity of -53.5 dBm,” in Proc. EFOC-
LAN 1992, paper 123.
1101 R. NoC, H. Heidrich, and D. Hoffmann, “Endless polarizaiton
control systems for coherent optics,” J . Lightwave Technol., vol. 6,
pp. 1199-1207, 1988.
L. J. Rysdale, “Method of overcoming finite-range limitation of
certain state of polarization control devices in automatic polariza-
tion control schemes,” Electron. Lett., vol. 22, pp. 100-102, 1986.
N. G. Walker, and G. R. Walker, “Polarization control for coher-
ent communications,” J . Lightwave Technol., vol. 8, pp. 438-458,
1990.
G. R. Walker and N. G. Walker, “Practical high-speed endless
polarization controller,” in Proc. 15th ECOC, 1989, vol. 1, pp.
535-538.
H. Shimizu et al., “Highly practical fiber squeezer polarization
controller,” J . Lightwave Technol., vol. 9, no. 10, pp. 1217-1224,
1991.
[15] R. Not et al., “Comparison of polarization handling methods in
coherent optical systems,” J . Lightwave Technol., vol. 9, no. 10,
pp., 1353-1366, 1991.
[16] F. Heismann and M. S. Whalen, “Fast automatic polarization
control system,” ZEEE Photon. Technol Lett., vol. 4, pp. 503-505,
May 1992.
[17] T. Sugie et al., “CPFSK high power transmission over 350 km at
2.5 Gb/s in the presence of stimulated Brillouin scattering,” in
Proc. ECOC ’90, vol. 1, pp. 69-72.

Equalization and Mode Partition Noise in

All-Plastic Optical Fiber Data Links
Richard J. S. Bates

Abstract-High-speed, short distance data transmission over
all-plastic step-index fiber (POF) is normally considered to be
limited by intermodal dispersion. Theoretical calculations in
this letter show that the baseband frequency response can be
significantly improved, using simple linear equalization. How-
ever, as the fiber length is increased, the sharp absorption
attenuation peaks of PMMA fiber can potentially introduce
mode partition noise. The bounds on practical laser characteris-
tics and fiber lengths are explored; these results indicate that
530 Mb / s transmission over 100 m of 1 mm diameter POF is
feasible, thus potentially satisfying a significant segment of
future computer interconnect applications.

.Manuscript received May 26, 1992; revised July 1, 1992.

R. J. S. Bates is with the Department of Engineering, Cambridge
University, Cambridge CB2 lPZ, UK, on leave from IBM Division
Research, NY.
IEEE Log Number 9202936.
I. INTRODUCTION
F OR uely short distance interconnects, the various types
of copper cables are most economical, while for

1041-1135/92$03.00 0 1992 IEEE

BATES: EOUALIZATION AND MODE PARTITION I N OPTICAL FIBER LINKS 1155

medium and long distance data links, the position of silica Fig. 1 compares the exact and approximate impulse
fiber based schemes is unassailable. There is presently responses, after 25, 50, and 100 m, together with the
significant interest in understanding the potential of all- amplitude error between them plotted on the same ampli-
plastic optical fibers (POF) for the short distance data tude scale, for typical values of 1, = 36 m, 8, = 0.1, and
links that fall between these clear “copper” and “silica” 0, = 0.47 x 70%. As expected the error in the approxima-
domains, e.g., [l]; specifically, given the need of many data tion increases with length; nonetheless, it is predomi-
link applications to support lengths up to 100 m 121, what nantly at high frequencies ( w > w ; ) and remains small
is the maximum data rate that can be supported using over this range.
POF? In general, there will be an optimum equalizer that
Recent theoretical analysis [31 has shown the potential minimizes the sum AI‘,,,+, of the IS1 and excess noise
for standard digital transmission over POF, using a low penalty. Equation (1) and Fig. 1 suggest that a simple
numerical aperture (NA) launch. Kaiser et al’s results [41 equalizer, based on a differentiator network H , ( f ) = (1
-140 Mb/s transmission over 110 m of 1 mm diameter +
jf/rl B)/(l + j f / r 2 B), would be reasonable choice; it
step-index polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) POF-are has the practical advantage of being readily imple-
consistent with this analysis. mentable at high data rates, B.
This letter shows that simple linear equalization may be We can investigate the suitability of this choice by
used to improve the transmission potential of POF for assuming the noise power spectral density N(f)at the
short distance data link applications. However, the sharp receiver preamplifier output has the shape [61 N(f)a 1
absorption attenuation peaks of PMMA POF in the +
( f / p B ) * where p is a function of the input capaci-
600-800 nm region may introduce mode partition noise tance and other preamplifier parameters.
(MPN), over fiber lengths = 100 m; the scope of this Fig. 2 shows the variation in penalty, APIsI+, at lo-’’
potential limit is investigated. bit error ratio (BER), at the fiber channel standard (FCS)
rate of 530 Mb/s, with p = 0.5, 1, and 2, as a function of
11. EQUALIZATION the normalized equalizer break frequency, r, at L = 100
It is well known, e.g., [5], that decision feedback equal- m, with rz = 1.5. The results are for a Z5 - 1 pseudoran-
ization (DFE), including a forward filter, is an effective dom sequence, full-width rectangular transmitter pulses,
strategy for a channel with severe intersymbol interfer- the exact fiber response, with 1, = 36 m, 8, = 0.1, 6, =
ence (ISI); Kasper [6] has shown its effectiveness for a 0.47 X 70%, and a second order Butterworth response,
long length of multimode fiber, where the impulse re- H , ( f ) with f j d B = 0.7 x B for the receiver.
sponse becomes “Gaussian.” However, for short lengths, The inset eye diagrams are computed without and with
the impulse response tends to an ‘exponential’; in this an equalizer ( r , = 0.25, rz = 1.51, and illustrate its effec-
regime the advantage in performance gain between a tiveness in reducing the IS1 (note that noise is not in-
-
DFE and a linear one is much less [7], since the latter’s cluded in these diagrams). For p 2 0.75 there is an
noise enhancement is less, and it may not justify the more optimum equalizer high pass break frequency that mini-
complicated hardware required. In the following, we illus- mizes the penalty; for smaller p, the penalty is a decreas-
trate the validity of the ‘exponential’ impulse approxima- ing function of r , over the range shown, i.e., it ceases to
tion and show the effectiveness of a simple linear equal- have a practical minimum, since it would be unrealistic to
ization strategy. ignore the jitter that accompanies increasing rl. Fortu-
It has been shown [3] that Jeunhomme’s [81 expression nately, the penalty changes slowly in this region, so that
for the frequency response of a step-index multimode rI = 0.25 remains a good practical choice.
fiber H f ( w ) agrees well with published measurements for
POF. This expression may be expanded to yield a single 111. ATTENUATION-INDUCED MODEPARTITION NOISE
pole, low-pass filter approximation: The attenuation of PMMA POF in the region 600-800
1 nm is dominated by the C-H absorption [l]; there are
Hf(4= w (1) “stretching” harmonic peaks y5 and y6 at 736 and 627
1 + j y - O( w ’ ) nm, respectively and a smaller “stretching and bending”
WO harmonic peak y5 + 6 at around 675 nm. Fig. 3 shows the
where: differential wavelength attenuation in the 645-675 nm
region due to this absorption; the curve passes through
zero at 650 nm and tends towards a local minima around
+
the y5 6 peak.
In the following we show that, with the order of 100 m
/ “I/ ’
6 1 of PMMA POF, we can have sufficient wavelength-depen-
dent attenuation to introduce MPN noise.’
x = L/41,, L is the fiber length, 1, is the coupling length, Clarke [9] has analyzed a similar problem of laser noise,
c is the speed of light, no is the core refractive index and
8, and 0, are the launch and effective steady-state NA, ’ Hanson [2] has already shown that this attenuation must be ac-
respectively. counted for in LED spectral calculations.
1156 IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 4, NO. 10, OCTOBER 1992

10, , I

Time -lo' 645 6;O 655 hi60 665 6;O 675 '
Wavelength. nm
Fig. 1. Optical time domain response, comparing the exact formula
with the low-pass filter approximation; solid line-exact, dashed-ap- ~ i3, ~variation
, in differential attenuation of PMMA fiber with wave-
proximation, dotted line-amplitude difference; sets of curves for fiber length due to C-H absorption, x-axis label-wavelength, nm;
length, L = 25, 50, and 100 m, from top to bottom; fiber coupling length, label-Differential absorption attenuation, dB/km . nm.
I , = 36 m, launch NA, 8! = 0.1 and steady-state NA, 0, = 0.47 x 70%.
X-axis label-Time; Y-axis label-amplitude.
proach involves computing the cumulants K, of the sum
distribution.
Using Clarke's notation for the average laser spectrum
{Z!}and the wavelength-dependent attenuations { a , } these
,
cumulants can be expressed as

I
m
u2 + ~ f (-
1 a,)' r = 2
I= 1
K, = m (3)
( r - l)!Z:(l - a,), otherwise
1=1

where u 2 is the sum of the variances of the Gaussian

4'
0
"
0.1 02
"
0.3 0.4
"
0.5 0.6
"
07 0.8
'
0.9
I
1
Normalized equalizer break frequency.rl
Fig. 2. Variation in sum of IS1 and excess noise penalty as a function of
the equalizer break frequency response, r , for T~ = 1.5; solid line-rela-
tive noise break frequency, = 2, dashed line-p = 1 and dotted line
-/3 = 0.5; data rate, B = 530 Mb/s and fiber length, L = 100 m; inset
eyes without and with equalizer ( r l = 0.25, r2 = l.S).X-axis
label-Equalizer break frequency, normalized to data rate; Y-axis label
-Sum of intersymbol interference and excess thermal noise penalty, dB.
arising from a WDM demultiplexer filter, taking into
account that the low power laser modes exhibit an expo-
nential amplitude probability density function (apdf). We
use an alternative formulation of Clarke's BER approxi-
mation and investigate the noise penalties for typical laser
and fiber parameters, to illustrate the magnitude of the
problem.
Clarke's analysis reduces to computing the distribution
function of the sum of a Gaussian and a number rn of
exponential apdf, (corresponding to the m low power
modes); this requires "extensive mathematical manipula-
tions." Here we compute the BER using a standard
asymptotic expansion (Edgeworth series) to an arbitrary
distribution function [lo]; compared to Clarke's formula-
tion, this has the advantage only of being computationally
simpler and otherwise yields the same results. The ap-
distributed thermal noise and MPN contribution of the
high power modes, defined by Clarke, and the summation
is carried out over the m low power modes, each
containing less than i% of the total optical power.
Fig. 4 shows an example of the variation in MPN
penalty with laser center wavelength for 100 m of fiber,
for three different values of laser spectral width and mode
partition coefficient; these are computed with a mode
spacing 6A = 0.2 nm, assuming a Gaussian spectral enve-
<
lope, = 5% and a transmitter extinction ratio E = 0.1.
As expected, the penalty is small around 675 nm and
negligible at 650 nm; however, it rises steeply below 650
nm and is not insignificant around 662 nm.
The implications of this result are best illustrated by
considering a practical example, where the laser center
wavelength may range over 15 nm, due to manufacturing
tolerances, aging and temperature effects ( 0.25 nm/'C). -
Placing the nominal center wavelength at 651.3 nm to
minimize the variation in fixed link attenuation a, a, to
f 2 dB, and assuming AA = 0.75 nm and k = 0.3, the
MPN penalty ranges up to 1.3 dB.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
It has been shown that a simple equalizer, based on a
differentiator network, can significantly improve the trans-
mission potential of short distance POF data links; for
example using 1 mm diameter step-index PMMA POF at
 ~

BATES: EQUALIZATION AND MODE PARTITION I N OPTICAL FIBER LINKS I157

length, its permissible range with temperature and spec-

tral width.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

’{,:
1-

It is pleasure to acknowledge the stimulating discus-

:_I 1
08-
%
sions with Dr. S. D. Walker on aspects of equalization.
x

5 REFERENCES
W. Groh, J. E. Kuder, and J. Theis, “Prospects for the develop-
f ment and application of plastic optical fibers,” in Plastic Opt.
0.4
.~
,~ -..
. .....
Fibers, P I E , vol. 1592, 1991, pp. 20-30.
D. Hanson, “Wiring with plastic,” IEEE Lighiwave Telecommun.
0.2 Syst., vol. 3, pp. 34-39, Feb. 1992.
R. J. S. Batcs and S. D. Walker, “Evaluation of all-plastic optical
00
.1
645
..~.~ ,
I.
I.

650
,I
,I

655 660 665 670

.._.
.._.
675
1 fiber computer data link dispersion limits,” Electron. Lett., vol. 28,
Wavelength, nm
Fig. 4. Variation in MPN penalty with laser center wavelength, at
lo-’’ BER with a fiber length, = 100 m; solid line-laser spectral
width, A A = 0.5 nm, MPN coefficient, k = 0.3, dashed line-AA = 0.5
nm, k = 0.5 and dotted line-AA = 0.75 nm, k = 0.3. X-axis
label-Wavelength, nm; Y-axis label-Mode partition noise penalty, dB.
the FCS rate of 530 Mb/s, the potential transmission
length may be doubled to 100 m. However, with the order
of 100 m of PMMA POF, there is the potential for MPN,
due to its large C-H absorption attenuation peaks; this
can impose a bound on the choice of laser center wave-
pp. 996-998, May 1992.
W. Kaiser and K. Ruf, “Chances and limits of high speed transmis-
sion on plastic optical fibers,” in 8th European Fiber Opt. Commun.
Local Area Networks Con$, Munich, Germany, Information Gate-
keepers, Inc., Boston, MA, June 27-29, 1990.
E. A. Lee and D. G. Messerschmitt, Digital Communication.
Boston: Kluwer, 1988, ch. 8.6.
B. L. Kasper, “Equalization of multimode optical fiber systems,”
Bell Syst. Tech. J., vol. 61, pp. 1367-1388, Sept. 1982.
D. G. Messerschmitt, “Minimum MSE equalization of digital fiber
optic systems,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-26, pp.
1110-1 118, July 1978.
L. Jeunhomme, M. Fraise, and J. P. Pocholle, “Propagation model
for long step-index optical fibers,” Appl. Opt., vol. 15, pp.
3040-3046, Dec. 1976.
B. R. Clarke, “Mode partition noise introduced by optical filtering,”
Electron. Lett., vol. 25, pp. 211-212, Feb. 1989.
M. Abramowitz and I. A. Stegun, Eds., Handbook of Mathematical
Functions. New York: Dover, 1965, section 26.2.48, p. 935.

High-speed Chip-to-Chip Optical

Interconnect
K.W. Jelley, G. T. Valliath and J. W. Stafford

Abstract-An intraboard chip-to-chip optical interconnect has
been demonstrated as a compatible and potentially manufac-
turable last step in our conventional multichip module process.
Chip-to-chip optical communication at 1 Gb / s NRZ was
achieved using an edge emitting laser, a flip-chip p-i-n photode-
tector and a photodefined polymer optical waveguide.
INTRODUCTION
S system speed and complexity have increased, cir-
A, uit board technology has experienced an evolution
Manuscript received May 15, 1992; revised August 4, 1992.
The authors are with Motorola Corporate Manufacturing Research
Center, Schaumburg, IL 60196.
IEEE Log Number 9203557.
from conventional through-hole and hybrid surface mount
approaches to a family of denser, faster boards that have
become widely known as multichip modules (MCM) [l]. A
potential next step in this evolution is the use of optics for
chip-to-chip interconnection [2], [3]. Optical transmission
media exhibit ultrahigh bandwidth, negligible electromag-
netic interference and optical noninteraction (whereby
physically intersecting optical waveguides can operate with
negligible crosstalk 121). Because of these properties, opti-
cal interconnects may assist conventional hardwire inter-
connects in the creation of faster, denser circuit boards,
requiring fewer substrate layers, with increased perfor-
mance and reduced cost.
We have demonstrated a high speed chip-to-chip opti-

1041-1135/92$03.00 0 1992 IEEE