Modulation formats analysis for optical short reach interconnects

A performance comparison among some promising low-complexity modulation formats suitable for optical short reach interconnects is presented. Bit error probability, electrical SNR and optical power penalty for different sets of operational parameters has been investigated through a complete analysis of the behavior of each format. Simulation results reveal that, among the selected modulation formats, while DBPSK and DQPSK are advantaged in terms of electrical SNR, this advantage is lost in terms of optical power. Among the formats requiring a lower technological complexity, the most resilient to chromatic dispersion turn out to be PAM-4 and CAPS, which outperforms PAM-4 as regards the power budget.