Tektronix, Inc. used OFC 2018 in San Diego, CA, last week to unveil its 59-GHz DPO7OE2 single mode optical probe for the DPO70000SX series real-time oscilloscopes. The 56-GBaud 400G PAM4 optical probe provides designers with debug capabilities for troubleshooting 400G PAM4 components and decreasing time to market.
400G with PAM4 signaling is more complex than 100G with NRZ modulation, and has increased the required time for design validation, debug, and troubleshooting cycles. There are several validation and debug challenges that the migration from NRZ to PAM4 modulation presents. According to Tektronix, a real-time oscilloscope-based approach will address these challenges.
The DPO7OE2 supplies optical reference receiver (ORR) performance for 56-GBaud PAM4, enabling engineers to efficiently troubleshoot optical devices using a complete set of debug capabilities. The set includes software clock recovery for PAM4 and NRZ, triggering, error detection, and the ability to capture time correlated or contiguous record of a signal for offline analysis, says Tektronix. It also has optical sensitivity and low noise to accommodate low PAM4 signal-to-noise ratio and channel effects.
The DPO7OE2 can be used for legacy NRZ applications as well. The analysis packages support PAM4 IEEE and OIF-CEI standard specific measurements including TDECQ. Additionally, ER, AOP, OMA, eye height and eye width, and other standard optical measurements can be supported.
The DPO7OE2 optical probe is now globally available.
"The switch to 400G and PAM4 is disruptive on many levels, not the least of which are the severe test and validation challenges facing engineers as they race to bring 400G solutions to market," said Sarah Boen, Wired Communications, Tektronix general manager. "By delivering the industry's first and only 56-GBaud real-time solution with PAM4 support, we are leading the way to the next generation of high-speed networking in the data center."
Tektronix introduced the DPO70000SX 70-GHz ATI performance oscilloscope at OFC in 2015 (see "Tektronix offers 70-GHz high-fidelity real-time oscilloscope"). The 59-GHz DPO7OE2 single mode optical probe follows Tektronix introduction of the 33-GHz DPO7OE1 last year.
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