University of Kiel chooses Discovery Semiconductors' photoreceivers for modulation research

APRIL 18, 2007 -- Discovery Semiconductors Inc. (search for Discovery Semiconductors) has provided balanced photoreceivers to the University of Kiel in Germany for their research on multilevel modulation formats for high-speed optical communications. Researcher Murat Serbay demonstrated a 16-ary modulation format at 42.8 Gbits/sec based on four phase levels combined with four amplitude levels.

This work was presented at last month's Optical Fiber Conference (OFC) in Anaheim, CA in the paper "42.8 Gbit/s, 4 Bits per Symbol 16-ary Inverse-RZ-QASK-DQPSK Transmission Experiment without Polmux," by M. Serbay, et al.

Prof. Werner Rosenkranz heads the group at the University of Kiel that studies advanced optical modulation formats. Prof. Rosenkranz said, "This sophisticated modulation technique enables fiber-optic communications with more than three times higher spectral efficiency as compared to conventional OOK techniques. Furthermore, 40-Gbit/sec transmission only requires 10-Gbit/sec optoelectronic components. One of the key enabling technologies is Discovery's balanced photoreceiver."

Abhay Joshi, President/CEO of Discovery Semiconductors, added, "Since 2001, we have been supplying the University of Kiel with high-speed balanced photoreceivers for their work on differential phase-shift keyed (DPSK) modulation formats. They were the first to propose and evaluate DPSK and DQPSK for fiber-optic communications. We are excited to see that these DPSK/DQPSK techniques are now getting deployed in 10-Gbit/sec and 40-Gbit/sec commercial telecom systems using our balanced receivers."

Joshi continued, "Similarly, we expect 16-ary work to be deployed for the future generation 40-Gbit/sec and 100-Gbit/sec commercial telecom systems."

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