Demonstration of 10 Gbit/s burst-mode transmission using a linear burst-mode receiver and burst-mode electronic equalization [invited]

We report on the feasibility of using burst-mode electronic dispersion compensation (BM-EDC) combined with a linear burst-mode receiver (LBMRx) to transmit 10 Gbit/s bursts with a loud/soft ratio of up to 15 dB over a reach greater than 100 km. The experimental demonstration used a LBMRx fabricated using a 250 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology and a BM-EDC implemented by offline processing of sampled data. BM-EDC means that the EDC tap coefficients are adapted based on a training sequence embedded in the preamble at the start of each burst. BM-EDC can be used to increase the total and differential reach of passive optical networks limited by chromatic dispersion or improve link performance for other impairments, especially if these vary from burst to burst. The training sequence must be kept short in order to ensure high traffic efficiency (defined as the ratio of the effective number of transmitted data bits to the total number of transmitted bits). Here we show that, using gear-shifted least-mean-squares adaptation, the required number of training bits in the preamble can be as short as 250 bits.