Dr.

Mohamed Zayed
 Outlines
• We want/need to understand effect on
networking (Optical)
• What components are possible, limitations
• Quick overview of representative technology
• Optical Connection and Power Budget
• Fundamentals of Fiber Optic Transmission
• Transmission Impairments and Solutions
• Lasers and Photodetectors
• Other Optical Components (Couplers, Filters,
Multiplexers, Switches, OADMs, Amplifiers)
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Transmission Media
• Coaxial Cable
• Twisted Pair
• Optical Fiber

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Coaxial Cable

 Used in original Ethernet )1983)

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Coaxial Cable
Two types of coaxial cable are used in networking
Thicknet and thinnet
Thicknet doesn't suffer as much interference as thinnet
cable
This is because this thicker version of coaxial cable is well
shielded
Thinnet (RG-58 coaxial cable), British Naval Connector (BNC)

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Coaxial Cable

(a) Thicknet (b)

Thinnet
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Coaxial Cable (BNC Connectors)

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 Twisted Pair
 Shielded Twisted Pair (STP): Used in original token ring

 Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP)

• Category 1, 2, 3, …, 5, 6
• UTP-3: Voice Grade: Telephone wire
• UTP-5: Data Grade: Better quality
o 1Mbps over 100 m in 1984
o 1000Mbps over 100 m in 2002
o UTP-6 10 Gbps over 55 m
o UTP6a 10Gbps over 100 m
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 Fundamentals of Light

 Similar to waves produced by a stone throw in a pond

 Frequency = Cycles per second at a point in space
 Wavelength = Distance between peaks at time t
 Speed = Frequency ×Wavelength
 Speed in Vacuum = 300 m/s
 Speed in Fiber = 200 m/s
 Speed in Vacuum/Speed in Fiber  1.5
= Index of Refraction
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 Layering and Optical Services
• Generalized protocol layering can create complicated
multi-layer networks
• In this context, “optical layer” is another layer close to
physical layer, but possibly implementing network
semantics of its own

Network User Apps

Data Link
IP
Network
ATM
Data Link
Physical SONET
Network
Physical
Physical
Data Link Optical
Physical

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 Why Optical Fiber?
• Huge bandwidth: 30-50 THz
• Low losses (intrinsic): 0.2 db/Km
• Low bit error rates (BER): 10-11
• Low power requirements: 100 photons/bit
• Immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI)
• Low cross-talk
• Low cost, maintenance

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Optical Endpoint

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 Optical Power Budget

• Finite power available at source (laser)

• Minimum detectable receiver power
• Must account for all losses between source
and receiver
• Optical networks are power-budget limited,
not bandwidth limited

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Optical Power Budget (cont'd)

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 Wavelengths of Importance
 Wavelength of visible light 600 nm
(Violet = 400 nm, Red = 700 nm)
 Visible light has a high loss
=> OK for short distance communication only
 Infrared light (700-1600 nm) has a lower loss

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Wavelengths of Importance

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 Optical Fiber
• Optical waveguide
• Cylindrical core surrounded by cladding (+ protective
covering)
• made of same transparent material (glass, plastic)
• difference is value of refractive index n = c / v
• Single-mode vs. multimode fiber
• single-mode: core diameter 8-12µm, link length > 2Km
• multimode: core diameter 50µm, link length < 2Km
• Step-index vs. graded-index fiber
• step-index: refractive index constant across core diameter
• graded-index: refractive index varies along core diameter

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 Optical Fiber
 Multimode Fiber: Core Diameter 50 or 62.5 m
Wide core  Several rays (mode) enter the fiber
Each mode travels a different distance
 Single Mode Fiber: 10 m core. Lower dispersion.

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Refractive Index Profiles

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Geometric Optics: Snell's Law

n1 sin i = n2 sin t
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Geometric Optics: Total Reflection

Critical angle: c = sin-1 (n2 / n1)

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Maximum Cone of Acceptance

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Transmitter-to-Fiber Coupling

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Modes: The Wave Picture

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 Allowed Ray Angles

• Only allowed ray angles result in guided modes

• AB = d sin m = m /2 leads to half wavelength in the core
• m : integer, : optical wavelength in the core

• Mode: one possible path that a guided ray can take

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 Transmission Impairments
• Factors affecting transmission distance and bandwidth:
• attenuation
• dispersion
• non-linear effects
• Must minimize their effects for high performance
• improvement and redesign of fiber itself
• compensating for these factors
• Attenuation problem solved  dispersion effects significant
• Dispersion effects reduced  non-linear effects dominant

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 Attenuation
• Power reduces exponentially with distance (along
with the length of the fiber)
o Input = 10 mW, At 1 km: 5 mW, At 2 km: 2.5 mW.. ,

• Varies with wavelength

𝑃𝑅 /𝑃𝑇
10𝑙𝑜𝑔10
• Attenuation coefficient: 𝑎𝑑𝐵 = − (dB/Km)
𝐿
• L : length of fiber
• PT : power launched into the fiber
• PR : power received at end of fiber

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 Power Losses
• Material absorption: due to
• resonances of silica molecules
• impurities -- most serious is peak at 1390 nm
• Rayleigh scattering: medium is not absolutely
uniform
• refractive index fluctuates  light is scattered
• scattering proportional to -4  dominant at  < 800 nm
• Waveguide imperfections: relatively small
component
• Non-ideal fiber geometries
• due to bending, manufacturing imperfections

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Low Loss Region of An Optical Fiber

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 Dispersion

• A narrow pulse spreads out as it propagates along

the fiber
• Intersymbol interference:
• pulse overlaps neighboring pulses
• sharply increases the BER
• Dispersion imposes a limit on the bit rate that can
be supported
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 Intermodal Dispersion
• Most serious form of dispersion
• Occurs in multimode fibers
• Different modes of a wavelength travel at different
speeds
• Multimode fibers limited to low bitrate-distance
products
• Solutions:
• use single-mode fibers for large bitrate-distance
products
(8 µm < 2a < 10 µm  only one mode is guided)
• use graded-index fibers
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Graded Index Fibers

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 Propagation in Graded Index Fibers

• Rays are bent as they approach the cladding

• Rays further from core travel faster (due to lower n)

• Intermodal dispersion reduced by several orders of

magnitude
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 Material Dispersion
• The physical effect that allows raindrops to form
rainbow
• Refractive index of a material changes with
wavelength  different wavelengths travel at
different speeds along the fiber
• Different delays cause spreading of output pulse,
depending on:
• wavelength span of source
• length of fiber

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 Non-Linear Effects
• Stimulating Raman Scattering (SRS):
• light interacts with fiber medium  inelastic collisions
• not important in single-channel systems (thresh. about
500mW)
• involves transfer of power: hi freq. wave  low freq. wave
• introduces cross-talk in multi-wavelength systems
• Stimulating Brillouin Scattering (SBS):
• no cross-talk, low threshold power (few mW for 20-Km fiber)
• Four-Wave Mixing
• three signals present at neighboring frequency: f1, f2, f3
• new signal produced, e.g., f4 = f1 + f2 - f3

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O

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O

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 Bit, Baud, Hertz
 Signal element: Pulse
 Modulation Rate: 1/Duration of the smallest element
= Baud rate
 Data Rate: Bits per second
 Frequency: Cycles per second = Hertz
 Bit, Baud, Hertz: User, Receiver, Medium
 Data Rate = fn(Bandwidth, signal/noise ratio,
encoding)

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O

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 Layer 2 Data Link

 Framing: Beginning and end of each message

 Addressing: To whom if multiple receivers
 Flow Control: To avoid buffer overflow at receiver
 Error Control: Detect Errors, Acknowledge each
message, Retransmit if not acknowledged
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 High-Level Data Link Control
 ISO Standard
 Derived from Synchronous Data Link Control (SDLC)
 Mother of all datalinks
o Link Access Procedure-Balanced (LAPB): X.25
o Link Access Procedure for the D channel (LAPD):
ISDN
o Link Access Procedure for modems (LAPM): V.42
o Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP): Internet

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 HDLC Framing

 Flag: Indicates beginning and end of a frame

(01111110)
 Address: Destination of the frame.
Ignored if point to point
 Control: Type of frame (Data, Ack), Sequence No.
 Information: Message
 Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC): Detect errors
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Modulo-2 Operation

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CRC

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CRC

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CRC

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 Bit Stuffing
• Problem: What if user messages contain flag,
(0111 1110)
• Patented Solution:
• Replace 11111 by 111110 at transmitter
• Replace all 111110 by 11111 at receiver
• Original Pattern:
111111111111011111101111110
• After Bit stuffing:
1111101111101101111101011111010
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 Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
 Originally for User-network connection
• Now being used for router-router connection
 Typical connection setup:
 Home PC Modem calls Internet
• Provider's router: sets up physical link
 PC sends Link Control Protocol (LCP) packets
• Select PPP (data link) parameters. Authenticate.
 PC sends Network Control Protocol (NCP) packets
• Select network parameters, E.g., Get IP address
 Transfer IP packets
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 PPP in HDLC-Like Framing

01111110 11111111 00000011

• Flag = 0111 1110 = 7E

• Byte Stuffing = 7E = 7D 5E ; 7D = 7D 5D
• Address = FF  All Stations
• Control = 03  Unnumbered
• 16 bit FCS default
• 32 bit FCS can be negotiated using LCP
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 CSMA / CD
 Aloha at Univ of Hawaii: Transmit whenever you like
o Worst case utilization = 1/ (2e) =18%
 Slotted Aloha: Fixed size transmission slots
o Worst case utilization 1/e = 37%
 CSMA: Carrier Sense Multiple Access
o Listen before you transmit
 CSMA/CD: CSMA with Collision Detection
o Listen while transmitting. Stop if you hear
someone else

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 IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD
 If the medium is idle, transmit
 If the medium is busy, wait until idle and then
transmit immediately.
 If a collision is detected while transmitting,
o Transmit a jam signal for one slot
(Slot = 51.2 s = 64 byte times)
o Wait for a random time and reattempt (up to 16
times)
o Random time = Uniform 0, 2min(𝑘,10) − 1 slots
 Collision detected by monitoring the voltage
High voltage  two or more transmitters collision
 Length of the cable is limited to 2 km
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 Ethernet Standard
• 10 BASE5: 10 Mb/s over coaxial cable (ThickWire)
• 10 BROAD36: 10 Mb/s over broadband cable, 3600
m max segments
• 1 BASE5: 1 Mb/s over 2 pairs of UTP
• 10 BASE2: 10 Mb/s over thin RG58 coaxial cable
(ThinWire), 185 m max segments
• 10 BASE-T: 10 Mb/s over 2 pairs of UTP
• 10 BASE-FL: 10 Mb/s fiber optic point-to-point link
• 10 BASE-FB: 10 Mb/s fiber optic backbone (between
repeaters). Also, known as synchronous Ethernet.

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 Ethernet Standard (Cont)
 10 BASE-FP: 10 Mb/s fiber optic passive star + segments
 10 BASE-F: 10BASE-FL, 10BASE-FB, or 10BASE-FP
 100 BASE-T4: 100 Mb/s over 4 pairs of CAT - 3, 4, 5 UTP
 100 BASE-TX: 100 Mb/s over 2 pairs of CAT - 5 UTP or STP
 100 BASE-FX: 100 Mbps CSMA/CD over 2 optical fiber
 100 BASE-X: 100BASE-TX or 100BASE-FX
 100 BASE-T: 100BASE-T4, 100BASE-TX, or 100 BASE-FX
 1000 BASE-T: 1 Gbps (Gigabit Ethernet)

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 IEEE 802 Address Format
• 48 Bit = 1000 0000: 0000 0001: 0100 0011:
1100 0000: 0000 1000 0000 0000 =
80:01:43:00:80:0C

• Multicast = To all bridges on this LAN

• Address = To all station  1111 1111… 1111 1111
= FF:FF:FF:FF:FF: FF
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Ethernet Vs. IEEE 802.3

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MUX/DEMUX: Logical View

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 Directional Couplers

• Coupling possible when waveguides placed close

together
• Coupling ratio controlled by voltage
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 Couplers: Logical View

• P1’ = a11 P1 + a12 P2, P2’ = a21 P1 + a22 P2

• For ideal symmetric couplers:
a11 = a22 = a, a12 = a21 = 1-a
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 Couplers

• Star Coupler:
o a = 1/2, 2 × 2 star coupler
o Cascade 2 × 2 couplers to build N × N star
coupler
• Switches:
o a = 0,1; 2 × 2 switch
o cascade 2 × 2 switches to build N × N switch

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Internal Structure of Star Coupler

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 Optical Switches
• Mechanical switches
• directional couplers, ratio modified by bending (ms range)
• MEMS mirrors moved in and out of path (100s of ns range)
• Bubble-Based switches
• bubbles in optical fluid reflect beam (10s of ms range)
• Electro-Optic switches
• couplers, ratio modified by changing refr. index (ns range)
• Thermo-Optic switches
• refractive index function of temperature (ms range)
• Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) switches
• SOA, change in voltage to use as on-off switch (ns range)

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 MEMS Optical Switching
• MEMS = micro-electro-mechanical system
• Movable mirrors to reflect light
• 2D MEMS: a 2-state pop-up MEMS mirror
• state ``0'': popped up position light reflected
• state ``1'': flat (folded) position light passes through

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2D MEMS Switches

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Static Optical Switches

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Reconfigurable Optical Switches

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