Test setup for optical burst-mode receivers

This paper proposes a test setup that can accurately measure the lock acquisition time of conventional and burst mode receivers subjected to phase, frequency, or amplitude steps. This work will be useful to network architects and circuit designers who wish to know with precision how many bits a receiver needs to acquire lock. The technique for measuring lock acquisition time, or preamble length, is based on an acceptable BER for the payload. Measurement results for the lock acquisition time of two commercially available OC-48 receiver chips will be presented.