Equalization and FEC techniques for optical transceivers

Abstract

In this tutorial paper, we present the application of well-known DSP techniques used in lower speed wireline and wireless applications, to high-speed optical communications. After an introduction on today's optical network architecture and typical optical channel impairments, we study techniques such as fiber equalization, maximum likelihood detection, and current and next generations Forward Error Correction (FEC), with special emphasis on VLSI implementation.