200-GS/sec Digital-to-Analog and Analog-to-Digital Converters for Communications and Instrumentation

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As internet traffic continues to increase exponentially due to the explosion of mobile multimedia devices, there is renewed demand for electronic circuits, instrumention and optoelectronic systems that can operate at serial data rates in excess of 50 Gb/s. The most advanced optical transmitters which power the backbone of the internet are limited to data rates of 110-Gb/s per optical carrier, 28-Gb/s data streams, and on simple on-off amplitude and/or phase modulation schemes. The next generation of optical fiber standards operating at 400 Gb/s per carrier will have to employ both higher-level modulation formats such as 16-QAM and OFDM, and higher serial bit streams at 56 Gb/s and 112 Gb/s. Such systems will require revolutionary mixed-signal analog-digital transmitter and receiver architectures. This grant proposes to investigate, design, fabricate, and demonstrate novel analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters that would have approximately 4 times larger bandwidth than today's most advanced published research results. They will be world-leading and pave the wave for the next generation of test equipment and of 1 Tb/s optical communication systems. The strong commitment and close collaboration with Ciena's world-leading optical IC communication research and development group in Ottawa will ensure that Canada and Ontario will remain the world leader in high-data rate optical communications. The grant will train a large number of graduate and undergraduate students in high-speed and mm-wave integrated circuits, and in fiberoptic sytems integration. They will carry on the expertise, entrepreneurship, and wealth creation that has characterized this field during the past 20 years at Nortel, Quake Technologies, Ciena, and many other world-class Canadian fiberoptic companies.