OFC MARKET WATCH

Panel 2

Recent advances and trends

for digital coherent 100Gb/s and beyond
technologies in submarine optical cable

Yoshihisa Inada
Submarine Network Division
NEC corporation

NEC Corporation
www.nec.com/submarine/
Outline

▐ Introduction

▐ 100G submarine cable systems

▐ Innovative technologies for beyond 100G systems

▐ Summary

Page 2 NEC Proprietary

Introduction

▐ Recent growth of international traffic demand has driven a drastic

capacity enhancement of trans-oceanic submarine cable systems
supported mostly by the break-through of digital coherent
technologies with large spectral efficiency.

▐ The introduction of 100G/s technology has stimulated the

investment for new build systems as well as capacity upgrade of
legacy systems as it can deliver large capacity in a more cost-
effective way.

▐ Recent advances and trends in submarine industry are presented

and discussed based on our records and activities.

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 Evolution of Capacity and Technologies
beyond-100Gb/s

Tun. Laser
Regenerator

Amplifier
5th Gen.

Tun. DCM
Optical
Optical
400G 1T (Super Channel)
100Gb/s
System Based
40Gb/s 100G x 100
10T System Based 4th Generation
40G x 176 (Digital Coherent)
Capacity (Bit/s) / Fiber Pair

10Gb/s 40G x 88
System Based 40G x 64
3rd Generation
10G x 192 (Multi-level formats)
10G x 128
2nd Generation
1T 10G x 96 You are here (DWDM)
10G x 64
10G x 32
10G x 16 1st Generation
2.5G x 16 (WDM)
2.5G x 8
100G 5G

5G
'94 '96 '98 ‘00 ‘02 ‘04 ‘06 ‘08 ‘10 ‘12 ‘14 ‘16 ‘18 ‘20 Year

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Technology Trend for 100G and Beyond
Technologies
• SD LDPC FEC
Capacity/fp • Higher order modulation
• Nyquist/ Super-channels
• NL compensation
• Advanced Fiber

20Tbps Multi-carrier
400G DP-16QAM
(Super-channel)
400G/1T DP-QPSK
Superchannel
10Tbps

100G DP-QPSK
50GHz spacing

5Tbps
100G DP-BPSK [legacy cable]
100GHz spacing

3,000km 6,000km 9,000km 12,000km

Transmission Distance (km)
Page 5 NEC Proprietary
Outline

▐ Introduction

▐ 100G submarine cable systems

▐ Innovative technologies for beyond 100G systems

▐ Summary

Page 6 NEC Proprietary

Components for Submarine Cable System
Submarine cable Power feeding
Branching unit equipment
Repeater

Line terminal
equipment

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Advanced Components for 100G Submarine System

Equipment Applied Key Technologies

SLTE Multi-level modulation (BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM)

Polarization multiplexing and demultiplexing
Digital coherent detection
Digital compensation for linear effect (CD, PMD)
Error Correction (LDPC based soft decision FEC)

Cable
Low loss and Large Effective Area fiber
Uncompensated dispersion map

Repeater Er-doped fiber amplifier (same as 10G/40G system)

Increased output power
Flat and wide gain characteristics

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Digital-Coherent Technology
Modulation Channel SE Optical
Carriers Constellation Map
Format Spacing [b/s/Hz] Spectrum

X-pol Im Im
100G
50GHz 2 1
DP-QPSK Re Re
50GHz
Y-pol X-pol Y-pol

Coherent Receiver LSI digital signal processing

►Unmatched sensitivity ►Digital Adaptive Impairment Compensation
►Hybrid Mixer Chip by PLC ► Polarization-mode dispersion
►Tunable lasers ► Ultra-large Chromatic dispersion compensation
►Narrow linewidth ►Digital polarization demultiplexing (increased SE)
►Advanced SD-FEC

DSP stages (100GbE)

CDC Pol-Demux Phase recovery SD-FEC
C1 C2 C3

V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7

Digital
ADC

Mixer Signal
01110010000101101001011

Processing 11010111010101110011001

00010001111011001110010

01111100010011110011111

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 LDPC based Soft Decision FEC

LDPC Decoding Process

+1 -1 -1 +1 -1 -1 +1 -1 +1 +1 -1 +1 +1
Bit Error Rate

+0.98 -0.89 -1.19 +0.95 -0.56 -1.04 +0.84 -0.68 +0.99 +1.23 -1.04 +0.92 +1.23

Log-likelihood ratio(LLR) calculation

Target BER

Coding Gain
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7

Required OSNR
▐ First generation: C1 C2 C3

Reed-Solomon (RS) FEC

▐ Second generation:
Concatenated hard-decision FEC Converged LLRs
▐ Third generation:
Soft-decision FEC with iterative
decoding (Large NCG > 10dB)
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DP-QPSK: High Capacity and Long Reach

▐ Short-medium reach upgrades and transoceanic new builds

▐ Dual polarization + Quadrature phase keying provides high
spectral efficiency [2 bit/Hz/s - 2.67 b/s/Hz]
▐ Ultra-large dispersion compensation capabilities in the DSP
DP-QPSK
processor (up to 12,000km)

Uncompensated Link
13
12
Q value (dB)

11
10 Uncompensated [Large core fiber]
9

[ps/nm]
8
7 [km]

6000 7000 8000 9000 10000 11000

Distance (km)

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DP-BPSK: Robustness against Fiber Nonlinearity

▐ Ultimate performance for transoceanic 100G upgrades

▐ Dual polarization + Binary phase keying provides strongest
tolerance to nonlinear effects in D+/D- submarine links
DP-BPSK

Dispersion 14
Compensation
12
Channels travel
at same speed
10
Q [dB]

DP-QPSK DP-BPSK
8
Large
XPM 6

Severe Phase-
4
noise -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4
Channel Power [dBm]

BPSK provides maximum robustness against phase noise

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Fiber Technology

Digital
Coherent
Capacity/Reach

DWDM
D+
EDFA [0.16 dB/km]
DMF
[0.2 dB/km]
100G DWDM
Single NZ-DSF
channel [0.2 dB/km]
40G DWDM
DSF
[0.3 dB/km]
10G DWDM
SMF
[0.5 dB/km] 2.5G DWDM
5G

80s 90s 00s 10s

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Repeater Technology

1480nm Pumps 980nm Pumps

Analog >20dBm
OOK DPSK [>40nm]
5G~2.5G WDM 10G DWDM 18dBm
[>35nm]

15dBm
[>30nm]

12dBm
[>20nm]

7dBm
[5-10nm]
40G DWDM 100G DWDM 400G/1T
5dBm DP-QPSK Nyquist QAM
[2-5nm]
Digital Coherent

90s 00s 10s 20s

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Outline

▐ Introduction

▐ 100G submarine cable systems

▐ Innovative technologies for beyond 100G systems

▐ Summary

Page 15 NEC Proprietary

Key Technologies for Increasing Fiber Capacity

Spectral Efficiency Impairments Compensated

Multi-level Modulation
16 SPM XPM
CD-PMD

8
3
4
2
100G
2
1 DP-QPSK, SSMF, C-EDFA

Fiber Cores
7 5 3 1
FEC-NCG
11 11.5 12

40
80
60
100
80
120
Fiber Core Area 120
[µm2] 140 Repeater Bandwidth
[nm]

C C+L Raman

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Spectral Efficiency 1: Higher Order QAM
40×117.6 Gb/s PDM-16QAM OFDM Transmission
over 10,181 km with Soft-Decision LDPC Coding
QPSK 8QAM 16QAM
Im Im and Nonlinearity Compensation
Im
Data1 LDPC AWG1

IQ (a)
50 GHz PolMux
Re Re Re Mod
20LDs (c)

12.5 GHz IL
IQ
Wave
Mod PC
Shaper
PM-EDFA
2bit/symbol 3bit/symbol 4bit/symbol Data2 LDPC AWG2
(b)
10:90

Data3 LDPC AWG3

12.5GHz
PolMux
F.S.
IQ OSA
50 GHz Mod
20LDs
Wave 10:90 SW
IQ

 Number of bit per symbol can be

Shaper
Mod

LSPC PC OSA
AWG4
increased Data4 LDPC

30.3 km 30.3 km

 Baud-rate per channel can be relaxed ADC

&
Off-line
90°
Hybrid
OTF1
Type II fiber Type I fiber
×7

DSP

 Spectral efficiency can be increased Processing

LO

 Digital processing is required in Error free transmission for 40 Channels Q versus distance
transmitter 6
9.5
9 CDC
8.5 NLC
5 8

Q (dB)
7.5
Q (dB)

7
4
6.5
A B 6
3 5.5
CDC
5
NLC
4.5
2 4
1545 1547 1549 1551 1553 1555
2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
wavelength (nm)
Transmission Distance (km)
OFC 2012, PDP5.C.4

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Spectral Efficiency 2: Super-channels
Current WDM Super-channel Concept

▐ Optical super-channels enable;

 400G and beyond signals with practical electronics
 Reduced channel spacing with digital pulse shaping and other technologies
▐ Next generation equipment will be based on both QAM and super-
channel technologies.
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Next Generation FEC

▐ High performance LDPC ▐ Adaptive overhead for on-demand

 Low Q limit < 5dB performance
 Still large complexity  Spectral efficiency is optimized to line
OSNR
 Latency can be reduced

1) 40×117.6 Gb/s PDM-16QAM OFDM Transmission over 10,181 km with Soft-Decision LDPC Coding and Nonlinearity Compensation. OFC 2012, PDP5.C.4
2) High Capacity Field Trials of 40.5 Tb/s for LH Distance of 1,822 km and 54.2 Tb/s for Regional Distance of 634 km, OFC 2013, PDP5.A.4

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Compensation of Fiber Nonlinearity
▐ Optical fiber nonlinearity limits the maximum Q factor after transmission.
▐ Back-propagation algorithm can compensate the fiber nonlinearity.
▐ Approx. 1dB improvement was obtained in 100Gb/s-10,000km transmission.
CDC
10.5
NLC

Limited Nonlinearity
1dB
Q (dB)

by OSNR (SPM) 10

Q (dB)
9.5

Power (dBm)
0 0.5 1 1.5
Power/channel (dBm)

Optical “Forward” Propagation Digital “Back” Propagation

Data In Data Out
PD
PD Analog
90 degree
Tx to
hybrid PD
Optical Link Digital Virtual Link
Physical domain (real fiber) PD DSP domain (virtual fiber)

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 Compensation of Fiber Nonlinearity (Dispersion managed links)

▐ Experimental Tests on Dispersion managed systems with back-propagation NLC

algorithm
 SMF+DCF link
 DMF link
 NZ-DSF link

SMF+DCF
Residual Dispersion link
∼ 7400 ps/nm (y-pol) DMF
127 Gb/s, link km
L=6455 NZ-DSF link
9
12 10
8.5
9

Q (dB) [from BER]

11
Q (dB) from BER

w/o 10G
8
8
Q (dB)

10
7.5
7
9
7 w 10G
6
8 NEC-BP=OFF
NEC-BP=ON 6.5 CD Compensation
5 NL Compensation
7
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 6
Power/channel (dBm) -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -10 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2
Power Power/channel (dBm)

1) Nonlinearity compensation using very-low complexity backward propagation in dispersion managed links. OFC2012, OTh3C4
2) 100G upgrade over legacy submarine dispersion-managed fiber link using fiber nonlinearity compensation and maximum-likelihood…, OFC2012, OTu2A
3) Low Complexity Nonlinearity Compensation for 100G DP-QPSK Transmission over Legacy NZ-DSF Link with OOK channels, ECOC2012, Mo1C5

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Space-division Multiplexing by New Fibers
▐ Multi core fiber Multi core fiber
 Capacity increase in proportion to the
number of core.
 Multi core EDFA is required for practical
deployment.

6,100km transmission over 7-core fiber

First demonstration of MC-EDFA-Repeatered SDM Transmission of 40×128-Gb/s PDM-QPSK Signals per Core over 6,160-km 7-core MCF, Opt. Exp, 21,789.

Page 22 NEC Proprietary

Outline

▐ Introduction

▐ 100G submarine cable systems

▐ Innovative technologies for beyond 100G systems

▐ Summary

Page 23 NEC Proprietary

Summary

▐ Thanks to the advancement in digital coherent 100Gb/s technologies and

the transmission optical fiber, the deployment of 100Gb/s is underway in
many projects for trans-oceanic submarine cable systems.

▐ The adoption of 100Gb/s DWDM in submarine networks significantly

increases fiber capacity in a cost-effective way.

▐ 100Gb/s technologies can be also applied to legacy systems for efficient

capacity upgrades.

▐ Advanced key technologies, including FEC, nonlinearity compensation,

digital multi-level modulation or optical super-channel, will enable larger
capacity of submarine cable systems beyond 100Gb/s.

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