| Electronic Dispersion Compensation (EDC) is an equalization technique used to correct for the transmission impairments of an optical signal in the electrical domain. In this work, an alternative to the traditional feed-forward/decision feedback equalizer (FFE/DFE) is analyzed at the system level, and implemented in an integrated circuit (IC) design. The target application is medium reach optical links at 10Gb/s employing non-return to zero (NRZ) modulation and direct detection. A unique infinite impulse response (IIR) filter is designed which exploits the properties of chromatic dispersion in order to approximate the behaviour of the commonly used FIR filter. Given the simplicity of this single delay element filter, a 10Gb/s EDC solution is presented which draws only 75mW in 0.13mum CMOS with an approximate 1.5mm x 1mm chip real estate. Simulation results and field measurements on a 100km optical link show that the proposed filter offers comparable performance to a baud-spaced FFE/DFE approach at less than half the power dissipation and one third the chip length. This is a multi-disciplinary thesis, incorporating elements of adaptive filter theory, digital communications, circuit design and photonic components. |
