APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ADAPTIVELY CONTROLLING THE IMPULSE RESPONSE OF THE OPTICAL SIGNAL OUTPUT FROM A LASER OF AN OPTICAL TRANSMITTER (TX)

• Main Authors: MILLER FREDERICK W, KANESHIRO RON
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 02.12.2010
• Subjects: ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; TRANSMISSION

An apparatus and a method are provided for adaptively adjusting the impulse response of the optical output of the laser of the optical TX in a way that ensures that the optical waveform being transmitted from the optical TX into the optical waveguide of the optical link has a desired waveform shape that improves or optimizes the performance of the optical link across variations in temperature, power supply, laser process corners, IC process corners, component aging, mechanical manufacturing tolerances, and part alignment tolerances. Adaptively adjusting the impulse response of the optical signal output from the laser in this way allows the optical TX to dynamically adapt to and compensate for a wide range of factors that typically cause performance degradation and result in reduced product yields, increased testing times, and increased test complexity, and higher costs. This, in turn, allows manufacturing tolerances and alignment tolerances to be relaxed, test times and test complexity to be reduced, and overall manufacturing and testing costs to be reduced.