Design and analysis of a high-sensitivity optical receiver for SONET OC-12 systems

In this paper, we will present the design and analysis of a high-performance lightwave receiver front end for SONET OC-12 applications. The receiver is designed to be operated with the standard +5 V and -5.2 W power supplies, and can be incorporated into an existing commercially available full receiver package. The full receiver achieves a sensitivity of better than -44 dBm at a bit error rate of 1×10 ^-9 over the whole operating temperature range of 0°-65°C. The construction and performance of the receiver will be discussed in detail in this paper. As a part of the process of design consideration, we will also discuss the S-over-X measurement, a characterization procedure for ISI (intersymbol interference) simulation and eye-opening estimation, frequently used for SONET or SDH subsystems yet not often discussed in the literature. The interpretations of the results of the S-over-X measurement are sometimes very misleading. Examples included in this paper will help the lightwave subsystem vendors and customers to have a better perspective on the S-over-X measurement process