High-performance FPGA implementations of volterra DFEs for optical fiber systems

Abstract

Low-complexity Volterra Decision Feedback Equalizers (VDFEs) for optical fiber links are proposed. By properly discarding large blocks of coefficients in the feedforward and feedback sections of the equalizer, a significant complexity reduction is achieved without affecting its efficiency. Moreover, suitable architectures and high-performance FPGA implementations are provided. It is demonstrated that the efficiency of the proposed VDFEs in terms of BER is similar to the counterpart full-size VDFEs for links of the same length, while, they demand 50% less arithmetic resources. Also, the proposed DFEs meet the desired 10 Gb/s rate and in certain cases achieve rates of 17 Gb/s and 25 Gb/s.