Multi gigabit optical transmission: distributed signal shaping structures providing tolerance to ISI and jitter

The authors have explored methods of increasing the bandwidth of digital optical communications while at the same time achieving tolerance to ISI and jitter which are issues of particular importance in high-speed systems. They have identified the impairments of significance at these high bit-rates and presented a method of designing distributed filters that take into account all these impairments. These filters have been shown to provide near optimum performance as well as a greater degree of robustness to variations in jitter level when compared to conventional post detection filters. These performance benefits are achieved at no increase in receiver manufacturing complexity. The design approach described offers significant performance advantages over conventional design strategies at the very high bit-rates that telecommunication users now require