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Modulation
EPDM-QPSK & EPDM-BPSK MODULATION
TECHNOLOGY
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Technical Challenges and Constraints
for High-Speed Transmission Systems

 Higher required OSNR

 A ULH WDM transmission system uses optical amplifiers (OAs) to compensate for fiber
loss. However, these OAs in turn introduce beat noise to optical signals. As the data
rate increases, the electrical bandwidth of an optical receiver has to increase linearly
to prevent severe filtering distortion of the received optical signals. However, a wider
electrical bandwidth of the optical receiver will introduce higher noise power into the
decision circuit of the receiver, increasing the bit error rate (BER) and requiring a
higher OSNR.
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Technical Challenges and Constraints
for High-Speed Transmission Systems

 Lower dispersion tolerance

 When spectral contents at different frequency components of the modulated optical signal
are transmitted at different speeds inside the fiber, dispersion occurs. This type of dispersion
is called chromatic dispersion (CD), and the CD in turn leads to a shape distortion of the
optical pulses. As a result, inter symbol interference (ISI) is caused between neighboring
optical pulses and thereby bit errors are generated.

 The CD tolerance has become a severe problem for 100G transmission and the traditional
optical dispersion compensation techniques can no longer mitigate the CD impact. As
such, 100G transmission calls for new dispersion compensation methods.
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Technical Challenges and Constraints
for High-Speed Transmission Systems
 Lower PMD tolerance

Like CD, PMD also generates ISI in optical pulses and causes bit errors and system
penalty.

Therefore, PMD tolerance is another severe problem for 100G transmission. The
traditional intensity modulation, direct detection (IM-DD) technique cannot meet the
design requirements of a 100G transmission system. A new technical solution to the PMD
tolerance problem must be determined.
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Technical Challenges and Constraints
for High-Speed Transmission Systems

 Intensified nonlinear effects of fibers

 In general, optical signals with a higher data rate have a lower tolerance for fiber
nonlinear effects. The strength of fiber nonlinear effects is related to the launched
power of the optical signals, optical spectral width, properties of modulation formats,
fiber dispersion coefficient, and number of fiber spans. Some special modulation
format techniques, such as phase modulation and return-to-zero (RZ) modulation,
enable the signals to better withstand fiber nonlinear effects during propagation.
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Technical Challenges and Constraints
for High-Speed Transmission Systems
 Bandwidth constraints

 To generate and detect a 112 Gbit/s NRZ-OOK signal, the bandwidth for optical modulators
and optical receivers (including electric drives, Mach-Zeder (MZM) modulators, and PIN
receivers), and other photoelectric devices must be as high as 70 GHz. This, however, is
difficult to achieve using current photoelectric devices, apart from the high costs on these
devices.

 Besides, if a 112 Gbit/s baseband data rate is used, the optical spectrum of a 100G optical
signal will be very wide, making it impossible to achieve WDM transmission with 50 GHz
channel spacing and to address the requirement on filter penalty caused by cascading
ROADM devices.
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Technical Challenges and Constraints
for High-Speed Transmission Systems
 Countermeasures
 The industry mainly uses the following measures to address the key technical challenges
and accommodate the 100G transmission requirements:Reduce the optical spectral width
to improve the bit rate per spectral width. This measure prevents overlapping of channel
spectrums, BER, and other transmission impairments in a high-speed transmission system
while reducing nonlinear effects.

 Use modulation formats that provide for lower required OSNR and higher capabilities to
withstand transmission impairments.

 Use digital signal processing (DSP) technology to mitigate the impairments of CD and PMD
effects of the optical fibers.
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Technical Challenges and Constraints
for High-Speed Transmission Systems
 To cope with the constraints and challenges, Huawei coherent transmission solutions employ
essential coherent transmission technologies, as described in the following table
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coherent transmission systems
ePDM-QPSK

 ePDM-QPSK, or enhanced Polarization Division Multiplexing-Quadrature Phase Shift

Keying, is a modulation format based on orthogonal polarization characteristics of

light. It splits a light beam into x-pol and y-pol and separately performs QPSK on the x-

pol and y-pol. The 112 Gbit/s service signal from the client equipment is split into four

parallel 28 Gbit/s signals after the serial-parallel conversion. Two of the 28 Gbit/s

signals are carried on the x-pol for modulation and the other two are carried on the y-

pol for modulation.

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coherent transmission systems
ePDM-QPSK

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coherent transmission systems
ePDM-QPSK

 QPSK modulation process using the modulation of the two 28 Gbit/s signals

on the x-pol as an example :

The digits 0 and 1 are modulated into 0 and π phases for the first 28 Gbit/s signal and
into π/2 and 3π/2 phases for the second 28 Gbit/s signal. Then the two light beams are
combined into one light beam again, with four possible phase values assigned at each
time point: π/4, 3π/4, 5π/4, and 7π/4. The four phase values correspond to binary digits
00, 01, 11, and 10.
According to the preceding information, the light beam on the x-pol contains two sub-
channels, each running at a baud rate of 28 Gbit/s while the total data rate is 56 Gbit/s.
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coherent transmission systems
ePDM-QPSK

 QPSK modulation process using the modulation of the two 28 Gbit/s signals

on the x-pol as an example :

the combined use of PDM and QPSK can substantially reduce the data rate at the
electrical layer.In PDM, one light is divided into two polarizations and the signal carried
by the light is then modulated onto the two polarizations. This procedure is equivalent to
splitting a data stream into two, reducing the data rate by half.
In QPSK, one phase represents two bits, which is also equivalent to splitting a data
stream into two, reducing the data rate by half.
For a 112 Gbit/s signal, the baud rate of the data is actually 100 ÷ 2 ÷ 2 = 28 Gbaud/s.
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coherent transmission systems
ePDM-QPSK

 As one of the multi-level modulation formats, QPSK assigns four possible phase values
in the optical field. This decreases the baud rate of optical signals by half while
keeping the line rate unchanged. It makes transmission based on 50 GHz channel
spacing and multi-wavelength 100G ULH transmission possible. The decrease in
spectral width further brings in other benefits, such as reducing the required OSNR and
improving the CD and PMD tolerance.

 ePDM-QPSK is a preferred modulation format for 100G WDM transmission.

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coherent transmission systems
ePDM-BPSK
 ePDM-BPSK, or enhanced Polarization Division Multiplexing-Binary Phase Shift Keying, is developed based
on ePDM-QPSK. ePDM-BPSK reduces the four phases 0, π/2, π, and 3π/2 of ePDM-QPSK to two: 0 and π.

 Figure illustrates the ePDM-BPSK modulation principle

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coherent transmission systems
ePDM-BPSK

As the ePDM-BPSK modulation format uses two phase values to carry data, it has a

strong capability to withstand interference and offers optimal OSNR performance.

Compared to non-coherent modulation formats, ePDM-BPSK provides for a longer

transmission distance.

ePDM-BPSK is a preferred modulation format for 40G WDM transmission.

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Coherent Detection Technology

A coherent light consists of two light waves that:

1. Have the same oscillation direction.
2. Have the same oscillation frequency.
3. Have the same phase or maintain a constant phase relationship with each other.
Two coherent light waves produce interference within the area where they meet.

A coherent system employs coherent detection technology at the receive end. Specifically, the receiver
uses a local oscillator to generate a laser light that has the same frequency as the received signal for
interference. Then the receiver processes the two light waves with a synchronous circuit to ensure that the
phase of the local laser light is the same as the phase of the received signal. In this manner, the receiver
recovers the amplitude, phase, and polarization of the received signal. A coherent system offers better OSNR
performance than a non-coherent system. This remarkably extends the 40G/100G transmission distance.
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Coherent Detection Technology
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Coherent Detection Technology

 High-Speed ADC and DSP Technologies

 Coherent communication itself cannot improve the CD and PMD tolerance, but Huawei's
coherent solutions can significantly improve the CD and PMD tolerance because they use high-
speed ADC and DSP schemes. After the ADC samples signals, the DSP algorithm performs
compensation for CD and PMD, which substantially improves the CD and PMD tolerance. The
high-speed ADC and DSP algorithms are essential technologies for coherent communication.

 Traditionally, DCMs equipped with negative dispersion fibers are used to compensate for
transmission fiber dispersion, which is an optical compensation means. However, coherent
detection technology uses DSP to eliminate CD/PMD, which is an electrical signal processing
technology of eliminating signal distortion and latency caused by fiber dispersion
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Coherent Detection Technology

 Compared with direct demodulation and differential demodulation, coherent detection uses a

laser that has optical power much higher than the incoming optical signal. Therefore, coherent

detection can greatly improve the OSNR performance. In addition to the local laser, coherent

detection uses DSP to process polarization-multiplexed signals, restructure the signals, and recover

the properties (polarization mode, amplitude, and phase) of the propagated signals. Therefore,

coherent detection significantly eliminates the transmission impairments caused by fibers and

allows for CD as high as several tens of thousands of ps/nm without using DCMs on fiber lines.