WDM Principle

l 1 WDM Overview............................................................................................Page4
l 2 WDM Transmission Media...........................................................................Page17
l 3 WDM Key Technologies.............................................................................Page26
l 4 Technology Specifications for WDM System..........................................Page54

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 WDM Principle

l About this course:

p This course mainly introduces the basic knowledge of WDM technologies,
expounds key technologies and optical transmission specification of WDM.
Through this course, you will have a relatively complete understanding of the
WDM knowledge and the development orientation of optical transmission
networks.

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 WDM Principle

l Reference:
p OTC000003 WDM principle
p ITU-T G.694.1 and G.694.2 (about the wavelength distribution)
p ITU-T G.671 (about the optical passive components)
p ITU-T G.652 , G.653 and G.655 (about the fiber)

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 WDM Principle

l Objectives for this chapter:

p To explain the basic concepts of WDM;
p To list the components of WDM and their functions;
p To outline the WDM background and technical features;
p To make comparison between CWDM and DWDM.

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l SDM increases the transmission capacity linearly by adding the number of optical
fibers, and the transmission equipment will be increased linearly, too.
l TDM keeps the same transmission medium but increases the bit rate. The equipment
is getting more and more complicated and expensive. Additionally, the maximum
transported capability over a fiber pair is in the range of a few 10Gbps.
l The way to scale to higher transported capacity is WDM. This technology keeps the
same fiber, the same bit rate, but uses multiple colours to multiply transported
capacity.
l WDM is widely used in the national and metro backbone transmission systems.

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l Legend:
p Freeway: Fiber
p Patrol Car: Supervisory Signal
p Gas Station: Optical Relay
p Gray Car: Client Service
p Colored Car: Service in different channels (wavelength)
p Driveway: Optical Wavelength
l Wave Division Multiplexing is a technology that utilizes the properties of refracted
light to both combine and separate optical signals based on their wavelengths within
the optical spectrum.

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 WDM Principle

l The Greek letter lambda ( l ) , is often used to designate individual wavelengths.

l Key word in the content is specific wavelength. How specific ? Please refer to ITU-T
series recommendations in chapter 4.
l WDM allows for a more efficient use of existing fiber by providing multiple optical
paths along a single (pair of) fiber (s).
l WDM allows for a greater range of protocol transmission better suited than legacy
network for data centric applications. (E.g.. GE, ESCON, Fiber Channel, D1 video)

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l OTU: Access the client service and convent the wavelength complied with ITU
standards.
l OMU: Multiplex several services with different wavelength into one main path signal.
l ODU: Demultiplex one main path signal into several individual signals.
l OA: Amplifies the optical signal.
l OLA: Optical Line Amplifier
l OSC: Optical Supervisory Channel
l ESC: Electrical Supervisory Channel

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 WDM Principle

l Unidirectional WDM system adopts two optical fibers. One only implements the
transmission of signals in one direction while the other implements the transmission
of the signals in the opposite direction.
l This tansmission mode is widely used in the worldwide.

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 WDM Principle

l Bi-directional wave WDM system utilizes only one optical fiber. The single fiber
transmits optical signals in both directions simultaneously, and the signals in the
different directions should be assigned on different wavelengths.
& Note:
p To MUX/DEMUX the signals in one fiber, circulator is recommended.
p This mode is usually used in the CWDM system to reduce the cost.

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l Open system has no special requirements for multiplex terminal optical interfaces,
the only requirement is that these interfaces meet the optical interface standards
defined in ITU-T.

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l Integrated system does not adopt the wavelength conversion technology, instead, it
requires that the wavelength of the optical signals at the multiplex terminal conforms
to the specifications for the WDM system.
l The optical interface in the client equipment that could provide standard wavelength
is called colored interface. Huawei series OSN products could support this function.
´ Thought:
p Can some channels use OTU and some channels use colored interface?

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 WDM Principle

l Up to know the capacity is 1920Gbps at most.

l Data Transparency Transmission:
p WDM doesn’t change the structure or any byte in the frame for the client
signal.
l Long Haul transmission: 5000km without REG / 230km long hop.
l Smooth expansion: modularization and no affect the existing services.

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l CWDM greatly reduces the system cost while providing certain amount of
wavelengths and transmission distance within 100 km.
p Fewer channels=cheaper hardware
p No amplification=a lower-cost system and distance-limited system
l Comparison between CWDM and DWDM

Types CWDM DWDM

Channel Spacing 20nm 100GHz/50GHz/25GHz
C-band: 1529nm~1561nm
Band 1311~1611nm
L-band: 1570nm~1603nm
Capacity 16 x 2.5Gb/s = 40G 192 x 10Gb/s = 1920G
Laser Un-cooled Laser Cooled Laser
Cost 70% 100%
Application 100km 5000km

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l CWDM greatly reduces the system cost while providing certain amount of
wavelengths and transmission distance within 100 km.
p Fewer channels=cheaper hardware
p No amplification=a lower-cost system and distance-limited system
l Comparison between CWDM and DWDM

Types CWDM DWDM

Channel Spacing 20nm 100GHz/50GHz/25GHz
C-band: 1529nm~1561nm
Band 1311~1611nm
L-band: 1570nm~1603nm
Capacity 16 x 2.5Gb/s = 40G 192 x 10Gb/s = 1920G
Laser Un-cooled Laser Cooled Laser
Cost 70% 100%
Application 100km 5000km

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 WDM Principle

l Fill in the blanks:

1. WDM System includes:________, _________, _________ and __________;
2. CWDM system could use optical amplifiers (True or False) __________;
3. ESC means____________________________________. Need additional
wavelength to transmit in the fiber (True or False) _________.
4. Single fiber bidirectional transmission (can or can not )_________ use the
same wavelength for transmitting and receiving.

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l OTU, MUX/DeMUX, OA,OSC

l False
l Electrical Supervisory Channel,False
l Can not

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l Objectives for this chapter:

p List the characteristics of the fiber;
p Classify different types of the fiber;
p Outline the methods to against the factors.

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l An optical fiber consists of two different types of solid glass —the core and
cladding—that are mixed with specific elements to adjust their refractive indices.
The difference between the refractive indices of the two materials causes most of
the transmitted light to bounce off the cladding and stay within the core. The critical
angle requirement is met by controlling the angle at which the light is injected into
the fiber. Two or more layers of protective coating around the cladding ensure that
the glass can be handled without damage.
l N1 and N2, which one is larger ?

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l Band Wavelength Bandwidth (nm)

l Original 1260~1360 100
l Extended 1360~1460 100
l Short 1460~1525 65
l Conventional 1525~1565 40
l Long 1565~1625 60
l Ultra long 1625~1675 50

l Combining the above losses, the attenuation constant of single mode fiber at
1310nm and 1550nm wavelength areas is 0.3~0.4dB/km (1310nm) and
0.17~0.25dB/km (1550nm), respectively. As defined in ITU-T Recommendation
G.652, the attenuation constant at 1310nm and 1550nm should be less than
0.5dB/km and 0.4dB/km, respectively.

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l Dispersion in fiber refers to a physical phenomenon of signal distortion caused when

various modes carrying signal energy or different frequencies of the signal have
different group velocity and disperse from each other during propagation.
l CD(Chromatic Dispersion): Since different frequency (wavelength) components of the
light source have different group velocities and light beams with different
frequencies have different time delays in transmission, dispersion arising from which
is called chromatic dispersion.

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l G.652 fiber is currently a single mode fiber for widely use, called 1310nm property
optimal single mode fiber and also called dispersion unshifted fiber.
l G.653 fiber is called dispersion shifted fiber or 1550nm property optimal fiber. By
designing the refractive index cross section, the zero dispersion point of this kind of
fiber is shifted to the 1550nm window to match the minimum attenuation window.
This makes it possible to implement ultrahigh speed and ultra long distance optical
transmission.
l G.655 fiber, a nonzero dispersion shifted single mode optical fiber, is similar to
G.653 fiber and preserves certain dispersion near 1550nm to avoid four-wave mixing
phenomenon in DWDM transmission. It is suitable for DWDM system applications.

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l DCF is one special kind of optical fiber, with the negative dispersion at 1550nm
window.
l The dispersion coefficient is -90~-120ps/nm.km
l DCF can counter act positive dispersion while bring new insertion loss and increasing
of PMD.

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 WDM Principle

l PMD(Polarization Mode Dispersion): The dispersion resulting from different

propagation velocities of two states of cross polarization of optical signal in fiber is
known as PMD.
l In a fiber, the cross section of the core may take the form of ellipse due to fiber
manufacturing technology, and the anisotropic stress of the cross section of the fiber
resulting from the inhomogeneous thermal expansion coefficient of the material may
lead to the anisotropy of refractive indices of the fiber. Both of these circumstances
may result in the difference of two polarization mode propagation velocities and
different group delays and lead to polarization mode dispersion. Since its causes are
random, polarization mode dispersion is a random quantity.
l In actual WDM systems, PMD has small influence for systems with rates lower than
10 Gbit/s, for systems with the rate of 40 Gbit/s, usually we can use proper coding
technologies to improve the tolerance of PMD.

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l Output laser is controlled by input current. The variation of the modulation current
causes the variation of output wavelength.
l This variation, called modulation chirp, is actually a kind of wavelength (frequency)
jitter inevitable for direct modulation of the sources. The chirp broadens the
bandwidth of the emitting spectrum of the laser, deteriorates its spectrum
characteristics and limits the transmission rate and distance of the system.
l Transmission rate is limited to 2.5Gbit/s, and transmission distance is less than
100km.
l Similar Specification –This kind of modulator is Widely used in CWDM system.

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l EA modulator adopts different structure, use stable DC current to let LD output a

standard wavelength (complied with ITU-T). EA module act as a door that open only
happens to the current change. In this way, the information is modulated into the
wavelength.
l Less chirp = Support long haul transmission (2.5Gb/s > 600km)
l High Dispersion tolerance (2.5Gb/s: 7200~12800ps/nm)
l Most widely used in DWDM

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l This modulator separates the light input into two equal signals which enter the two
optical branches of the modulator respectively. These two optical branches employ
an electro-optical material whose refractive index changes with the magnitude of the
external electrical signal applied to it. Changes of the refractive index of the optical
branches will result in the change variation of the signal phases. Hence, when the
signals from the two branches recombine at the output end, the combined optical
signal is an interference signal with varying intensity. With this method, the
frequency chirp of the separated external modulated laser can be equal to zero.
l Long dispersion limited distance
l High cost with good performance
l Negligible chirp
l Not widely used.

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l Coherent modulator:
p Step 1: The polarization beam splitter splits the laser light into two
polarizations (x-pol and y-pol) that are perpendicular to each other.
l Coherent modulation technologies:
p ePDM-QPSK is short for polarization-multiplexed quadrature phase-shift
keying and is developed based on the differential quadrature phase shift
keying (DQPSK) technology, it’s a preferred solution for 100G WDM
transmission.
p ePDM-BPSK is short for polarization-multiplexed binary phase shift keying
and is developed based on ePDM-QPSK, it’s intended for 40G ultra long-haul
transmission.
l The modulation mode of traditional WDM is amplitude modulation, PDM-QPSK and
PDM-BPSK use phase modulation.

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l Coherent modulator:
p Step 2: Performs QPSK/BPSK modulation for the optical signal on the x-pol
and that on the y-pol, and then, The polarization beam combiner combines
the modulated signal on the x-pol and that on the y-pol onto the same fiber.
Then the signals are multiplexed and amplified and sent to a fiber for
transmission.
l The PDM and QPSK technologies are used to reduce the service processing rate at
the electrical layer. Processing 40 Gbit/s has almost reached the electron limit of the
current circuit technology. A higher rate will make it difficult to resolve the signal
losses, power dissipation, electromagnetic radiation (interference), and resistance
mismatch issues, and cost is very high to resolve these issues.
p The PDM technology splits an optical signal into two polarizations and
modulates the signal to the two polarizations. In this manner, the data signal
is divided into two so that the rate is reduced by half.
p In the QPSK technology, a phase carries two data bits, which is equivalent to
dividing a signal into two. Consequently, the rate is reduced by half.
p For a 112 Gbit/s signal, the data baud rate is 112 ÷ 2 ÷ 2 = 28 Gbaud/s.
l 40G transmission schemes can use PDM-BPSK modulation. In BPSK modulation, one
phase of the carrier express 1 bit signal, so that the veracity of the detection can be
better. The ability of fighting none linear effect is better.

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l First QPSK modulation transform 28 Gbaud/s digital signals(2bit) to optical field I-

channel and Q-channel. Then with the formula s(t)=I*Cosωt-Q*Sinωt=√2 Cos(ωt+θ),
the digital signals are transformed to phase(θ) signal and one phase signal(θ) contain
2 bit digital signals. The value of θ is π/4，3π/4，5π/4 and 7π/4, to express
00,01,11,10.

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l Coherent receiver:
p Step 3: At the receive end, the received signal light is sent to the OTU board
and divided into two. One is allocated to the x-pol and the other to the y-pol.
The x-pol and y-pol refer to any two polarizations perpendicular to each
other.

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l As a maturing technology, direct modulator and indirector modulator are widely

used in non-coherent WDM system.

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l The EDFA amplifier is widely used in WDM system.

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l Principle:
p The outer electrons of Er ions have 3 energy levels, where E1 is the basic
state energy level, E2 is the metastable state energy level and E3 is the high
energy level.
p When high-energy pump lasers are used to excite the EDF, lots of bound
electrons of the erbium ions are excited from E1 to E3 level, then soon
dropped to the E2 level via a non-radiation decay process (i.e. no photon but
heat is released).
p When a signal with the wavelength of 1550nm passes through this erbium-
doped fiber, particles in the metastable state are transited to the basic state
via stimulated radiation and generate photons identical to those in the
incident signal light.

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l TAP is used to spilt out a little part of energy and send it to the PD to detection.
l ISO is used to make sure the signal transmit in one direction.
l Pump laser has two type: with 980nm and with 1480nm.
l If we want to get a high gain, we could cascade EDF and pumping laser

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l Advantage:
p Fortunately, 1550nm is in the low attenuation window, the emergence of
EDFA greatly activate the development of WDM.
l Disadvantage:
p Gain un-flatness

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l If we cannot control the gain, optical surge generates.

l With AGC function:
p When add wavelengths from 1 to 40, the gain will be not changed.
p When drop wavelengths from 40 to 1, the gain will be not changed also
l Key Component is the DSP that makes the nonlinear calculation.

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l Principle:
l Fiber has wide SRS gain spectrum and a wide gain peak around a frequency 13THz
lower than that of the pumping light. If a weak signal and a strong pumping light
wave are transmitted through the fiber at the same time, and the wavelength of the
weak signal is set within the Raman gain bandwidth of the strong pumping light, the
weak signal can be amplified. Such SRS-based OA is call Raman optical amplifier.
Raman optical amplifier’s gain is the switch gain, that is, the difference between the
output power when the amplifier is on and that when the amplifier is off.

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l Advantage:
p The gain wavelength is determined by the pumping light wavelength.
p The gain medium is the transmission fiber itself, low noise.
p As the amplification is distributed along the fiber with the comparatively low
signal power, it reduces the interference from non-linear effect, especially
FWM effect.
l Disadvantage:
p High power is harmful for body.
p Be careful when put operation on Raman.

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l According to its application:

p BA: Booster amplifier, mainly used in the transmit end. For the hardware
description, you will see OBU card.
p LA: Line amplifier, mainly used in the amplifier station, could be recognized
as BA+PA. For the hardware description, you will see OAU card.
p PA: Pre-amplifier, mainly used in the receive end. For the hardware
description, you will see OPU card.

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l For all the optical lights are bidirectional, the mechanisms of multiplexer and
demultiplexer are the same. Here in after we just discuss about the multiplexer, if
you reverse the direction, it could also be considered as a demultiplexer.

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l Film Filter offers good stability and isolation between channels at moderate cost, but
with a high insertion loss.
l So the number of dropping wavelength is limited.

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l The waveguides are connected to cavities at the input and output. When the light
enters the input cavity, it is diffracted and enters the waveguide array. There the
optical length difference of each waveguide introduces phase delays in the output
cavity, where an array of fibers is coupled. The process results in different
wavelengths having maximal interference at different locations, which correspond to
the output ports.

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l OSC is often used in the backbone wavelength system,and ESC is normally used in
metropolitan system.

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l Pumping wavelength of OA: 980nm or 1480nm.

l 1310nm already defined by ITU-T for future use.
l OA fails, all signal lost, requires the supervisory signal continue to transmit alarms
and other indications.
l The receive sensitivity of the OSC unit is very good, up to -48dBm.

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l FA: Frame alignment.

l E1 E2 : Orderwire.
l ALC: Automatic Level Control.
l F1 F2 F3 : transparent serials data.
l D1-D12: DCC bytes, data communication channel.

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l The optical transponder unit (OTU) multiplexes the supervisory information into the
service channel for transmission.
l The ESC reduces the investment of the OSC. It also deletes the insertion loss of the
FIU. This lowers the cost and the power budget of optical channels.

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l Fill in the blanks:

1. EDFA means:______________________; its pumping wavelength
is___________; We can calculate noise figure by _________。
2. AWG means:______________________; TFF
means:________________________;
3. OSC signal’s frame structure is_____________, (can, can not) by amplified by
OA.
4. ESC support OLA station ?_______(True, False)

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l LD, EA, M-Z

l EDFA, Raman
l TFF, AWG
l OSC, ESC

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l ITU-G.692 – Optical Interfaces for Multi-Channel Systems with Optical Amplifiers

p This recommendation specifies multi-channel optical line system interfaces
for the purpose of providing future transverse compatibility among such
systems. The current recommendation defines interface parameters for
systems of four, eight, and sixteen channels operating at bit rates of up to
STM-16 on fibers, as described in Recommendations G.652, G.653, and
G.655 with nominal span lengths of 80 km, 120 km, and 160 km and target
distances between regenerators of up to 640 km. A frequency grid anchored
at 193.1 THz with inter-channel spacing at integer multiples of 50 GHz and
100 GHz is specified as the basis for selecting channel central frequencies.

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