IBM sets VCSEL-based multimode fiber-optic communications record
Washington, DC--At the 2014 OFC Conference and Exposition being held March 9-13 in San Francisco, researcher Dan Kuchta of the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York will describe how IBM researchers set a new record for data transmission over a multimode optical fiber, demonstrating that the existing technology for sending data over short distances should be able to meet the growing needs of servers, data centers, and supercomputers through the end of this decade.
Sending data at a rate of 64 gigabits per second (Gbps) over a cable 57 m long using a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL), the researchers achieved a rate that was about 14% faster than the previous record and about 2.5 times faster than the capabilities of today's typical commercial communications technology. To send the data, the researchers used standard non-return-to-zero (NRZ) modulation. "Others have thought that this modulation wouldn't allow for transfer rates much faster than 32 Gb/s," said Kuchta. Many researchers thought that achieving higher transmission rates would require turning to more complex types of modulation, such as pulse-amplitude modulation-4 (PAM-4).
"What we're showing is that that's not the case at all," Kuchta said. Because he and his colleagues achieved fast speeds even with NRZ modulation, he added, "this technology has at least one or two more generations of product life in it."
To achieve such high speeds, the researchers used the VCSEL lasers developed at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and custom silicon-germanium chips developed at IBM Research. "The receiver chip is a unique design that simultaneously achieves speeds and sensitivities well beyond today's commercial offerings," Kuchta explained. "The driver chip incorporates transmit equalization, which widens the bandwidth of the optical link. While this method has been widely used in electrical communication, it hasn't yet caught on in optical communication," he said.
"Researchers typically rely on a rule of thumb that says the usable data-transfer rate is about 1.7 times the bandwidth," Kuchta explained. "That means that with the VCSEL laser, which has a bandwidth of about 26 GHz, the rate would be only about 44 Gb/s. What we're doing with equalization is we're breaking the historical rule of thumb," Kuchta said.
The fast speeds only worked for a distance of 57 m, so this technology isn't designed for sending data across continents. Instead, it's most suitable for transmitting data within a building, he said. About 80% of the cables at data centers and most, if not all, of the cables used for typical supercomputers are less than 50 meters long. This new technology, Kuchta added, is ready for commercialization right now.
Presentation Th3C.2 entitled "64Gb/s Transmission over 57m MMF using an NRZ Modulated 850nm VCSEL" will take place at OFC on Thursday, March 14 at 1:30 p.m. in room 121 of the Moscone Center.
SOURCE: The OSA; http://www.osa.org/en-us/about_osa/newsroom/newsreleases/2014/new_record_set_for_data-transfer_speeds/
Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)
Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.