The new modules, capabilities, and probe, along with the full set of Tektronix solutions for 100G/400G optical characterization and validation, are being demonstrated at the OFC optical networking and communication conference and exhibition taking place this week in San Diego.
“As 400G designs move into production, our customers are looking for ways to improve manufacturing yield and cost of test, which all starts with confidence in test results and the ability to quickly and accurately separate good components from bad ones,” said Sarah Boen, general manager, Performance Oscilloscopes, Tektronix. “With the industry’s lowest noise and highest sensitivity, our solution delivers insights that improve yields and throughput on optical components and interconnects.”
When installed in DSA8300 sampling oscilloscopes, the new 80C20 and 80C21 optical modules for 56-Gbaud PAM4 and NRZ offer the industry’s best noise performance with 9-µW optical noise, the company said. The 2-channel 80C21 enables optical manufacturing test engineers to double throughput and capacity. If a device fails, Tektronix offers a comprehensive set of enhanced PAM4 analysis tools to decompose signal content for noise and jitter to help engineers understand the underlying problem.
To keep pace with demands for more bandwidth in datacenters, the optical industry is rapidly making the move to 400G and PAM4. However, production engineers face challenges to keep per device test cost low due to lower signal-to-noise ratio, reduced signal amplitude, and a more than 10x increase in the number of tests. The 80C20 and 80C21 optical modules and 400G test software enhancements will be available beginning in April. For more information visit https://www.tek.com/wired-communications/400g-pam4-testing.
56-Gbaud single-mode optical probe
Compared with 100G with NRZ modulation, 400G with PAM4 signaling is far more complex and has substantially increased the time required for design validation, debug, and troubleshooting cycles. Although Tektronix also offers 400G equivalent-time (sampling) solutions, the migration from NRZ to PAM4 modulation presents a number of validation and debug challenges that only a real-time oscilloscope-based solution is equipped to solve.
“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 Boen. “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.”
Delivering ORR (optical reference receiver) performance for 56-Gbaud PAM4, the DPO7OE2 allows engineers to more easily and quickly troubleshoot optical devices using a complete set of powerful debug capabilities including 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. It also features best-in-class optical sensitivity and lowest noise to accommodate low PAM4 signal-to-noise ratio and channel effects.
The DPO7OE2 can also be used for legacy NRZ applications. Analysis packages support standard optical measurements including ER, AOP, OMA, eye height, and eye width, as well as PAM4 IEEE and OIF-CEI standard specific measurements including TDECQ. For information visit https://www.tek.com/wired-communications/400g-pam4-testing.
