Inphi Corporation

Marvell Asia Pte., Ltd.

Source Photonics Inc.

Magnolia Source (cayman) Limited

Todd Rope

Radhakrishnan L Nagarajan

Hari Shankar

Ilya Lyubomirsky

Mark Heimbuch

Whay Sing Lee

Jamal Riani

Arash Farhoodfar

Pulkit Khandelwal

Paul Yu

James Stewart

Sung Choi

Ali Ghiasi

Near Margalit

Mohammad Azadeh

Yaxi Xiong

Haifeng Zeng

Chris LaBounty

Tomas J Ciplickas

A host device includes a transmitter, an out-of-band electrical interface and a processor. The transmitter transmits in-band signals on an in-band electrical interface from the host device to an optical module. The in-band signals are data signals transmitted to test a link between the host device and the optical module. The out-of-band electrical interface transmits first out-of-band messages from the host device to the optical module, and receives second out-of-band messages from the optical module. The first and second out-of-band messages being control messages for testing the link. The processor performs tests to test the link and selects a set of transmitter settings based on the tests. The processor: i) subsequent to performing the tests, receives via the out-of-band electrical interface one of the second out-of-band messages including an indication of the selected set; and ii) in response to receiving the indication, sets the transmitter according to the selected set.

Setup and training of links between host devices and optical modules including menu-based and multi-stage link training

A first optical module includes an optical transceiver and a chip. The optical transceiver, subsequent to completion of link training of an in-band transmission link between the first optical module and a host device, waits for a second optical module to come up including transmitting a first awake signal from the first optical module to the second optical module, and receives a second awake signal from the second optical module when the second optical module is up. The chip i) based on a first out-of-band signal transmitted via an out-of-band link, performs the link training of the in-band transmission link independently of an in-band reception link between the first optical module and the host device, and ii) based on the second awake signal and a second out-of-band signal transmitted via the out-of-band link, performs link training of the in-band reception link independent of the in-band transmission link.

Out-of-band based independent link training of in-band links between host devices and optical modules

In an optical communication system, a high-speed data interface to an optical module can be configured from the module's host-side interface and line-side interface. These module interfaces can be configured with an integrated digital signal processor (DSP) having a DSP microcontroller unit (MCU) as a high-speed in-band DSP management interface. The DSP MCU can communicate to either a host MCU in a host switch/router via the host-side interface or to an external device through the optics hardware via the line-side interface. The present invention provides for systems, devices, and methods using this interface for numerous module DSP-related applications, such as firmware upgrades, management data, diagnostic/telemetry streaming, encryption key programming, and the like.

In-band DSP management interface

The present invention is directed to communication systems and methods. According to an embodiment, a receiving optical transceiver determines signal quality for signals received from a transmitting optical transceiver. Information related to the signal quality is embedded into back-channel data and sent to the transmitting optical transceiver. The transmitting optical transceiver detects the presence of the back-channel data and adjusts one or more of its operating parameters based on the back-channel data. There are other embodiments as well.

Closed loop module control for communication based on signal quality

Embodiments address optimization of an electrical interface between an optical host device and an optical module device at installation time. Certain methods try each entry in a set of Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter settings at the host transmitter, while asking the module to measure the signal integrity for each. The module will then provide an indication of which entry was the best choice for signal integrity in the current hardware configuration. Note that for the module to host electrical interface, this same technique can be used in reverse, whereby the host asks the module to configure its transmitting FIR filter, and the host records and keeps track of which filter setting is the best, and then configures the module with that filter setting. In both cases, for modules supporting CMIS (Common Management Interface Specification) for module configuration and control, methods are provided.

Optimizing host / module interface

The present invention is directed to communication systems and methods. In a specific embodiment, the present invention provides an optical receiver that receives a data stream from an optical transmitter. The optical receiver determines a histogram contour parameter using the data stream and inserts the histogram contour parameter into a back-channel data segment, which is then transmitted to the optical transmitter. The optical transmitter changes its data transmission setting based on the histogram contour parameter. There are other embodiments as well.

Histogram based optimization for optical modulation

The present invention is directed to a communication signal tracking system comprising an optical receiver including one or more delay line interferometers (DLIs) configured to demultiplex incoming optical signals and a transimpedance amplifier configured to convert the incoming optical signals to incoming electrical signals. The communication signal tracking system further includes a control module configured to calculate a bit-error-rate (BER) of the incoming electrical signals before forward-error correction decoding, and use the BER as a parameter for optimizing settings of the one or more DLIs in one or more iterations in a control loop and generating a back-channel data.

Rx delay line inteferometer tracking in closed-loop module control for communication

The present invention relates to telecommunication techniques and integrated circuit (IC) devices. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention provide an off-quadrature modulation system. Once an off-quadrature modulation position is determined, a ratio between DC power transfer amplitude and dither tone amplitude for a modulator is as a control loop target to stabilize off-quadrature modulation. DC power transfer amplitude is obtained by measuring and sampling the output of an optical modulator. Dither tone amplitude is obtained by measuring and sampling the modulator output and performing calculation using the optical modulator output values and corresponding dither tone values. There are other embodiments as well.

Off quadrature mach-zehnder modulator biasing

RX delay line inteferometer tracking in closed-loop module control for communication

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Glendale, CA, United States of America

Todd Rope