SSMF 1310nm dispersion characteristic influence on the 400 Gbit/s and 1000 Gbit/s ethernet physical layer design

Abstract

In this paper, influence of the standard single mode fibre (SSMF) dispersion characteristic on the multi-wavelength 1310 nm wavelength domain 400 and 1000 Gbit/s transmission is investigated. The four-wave mixing (FWM) effect and residual chromatic dispersion can significantly limit the system performance. Limitations due to the FWM effect are studied for various types of SSMF fibre. Suppression of the FWM effect will require the channel spacing of at least 1.4 nm. The FWM effect can be suppressed in fibres with the large core area, allowing much higher input powers or narrower channel spacing. Further limitations due to the residual chromatic dispersion are evaluated and the capacity and transmission trade-off’s are studies in detail. It is shown that, the chromatic dispersion related limitations are pronounced for the wavelength channel allocation that is favorable from the manufacturing and installation point of view. These limitations can be omitted by the alignment of the wavelength channels to the zero-dispersion wavelength band and its management in the fibre infrastructure. The line rate of 40 Gbit/s outperforms the 50 Gbit/s taking into account the transmission capacity and distance. The presented results support development of 400 Gbit/s and 1000 Gbit/s Ethernet physical layer.