Alphion Corporation

Michael Evans

David Lidsky

Bharat P Dave

Kwang S Kim

Boris Stefanov

Tan Buu Thai

Ronald Simprini

Julio Martinez

Doruk Engin

Olga Nedzhvetskaya

Roman Antosik

Jiten Sarathy

Jithamithra Sarathy

Gaurav Naik

A system, method and device for AO2R is presented. The AO2R system presented is redundant, containing multiple pathways for the input and output signals to travel. The system carries out both the regeneration and reshaping functions in the optical domain, and returns a clean output signal at the same bit rate and in the same format as the input signal, on a wavelength of choice. As an all optical device, the apparatus is bit rate and format transparent, and requires no optical-electrical-optical conversion. The system's built in redundancy and symmetry allows less than perfect yields on components to be tolerated, thus increasing the utility of devices manufactured with less than perfect yields. In alternative embodiments the redundancy aspect of the invention can be extended to any optical signal processing device, thus facilitating high availability optical signal processing.

Redundant path all-optical regeneration, reshaping and wavelength conversion for enhanced yield

A method and circuit are presented for an all-optical format independent preprocessor that processes an arbitrary optical input signal by converting a NRZ signal to a PRZ signal, or if the input optical signal is RZ, by merely amplifying it. The method involves subtracting a delayed copy of the signal from the original, thereby effectively doubling its frequency, and inserting a pulse at each transition of the original signal, whether rising or falling. In a preferred embodiment this stage is implemented via an integrated SOA in each arm of an asymmetric interferometric device. The asymmetry consists of a delay element in one arm. In a preferred embodiment the entire device is fabricated on a semiconductor substrate, allowing for compactness as well as minimization of interconnectivity losses and overall power consumption. The output of the preprocessor, having a significant frequency component at its original clock rate, can then be fed to a clock recovery stage for all-optical clock recovery.

Format insensitive and bit rate independent optical preprocessor

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Ocean, NJ, United States of America

Michael Evans