INCREASED SPECTRAL EFFICIENCY AND REDUCED SYNCHRONIZATION DELAY WITH BUNDLED TRANSMISSIONS

• US 20120307617A1
• Filed: 06/06/2011
• Published: 12/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Ross, John Anderson Fergus, Hartman, Michael James, Hershey, John Erik, Zinser, Richard Louis, Shi, Xiaolei
• Granted Patent: US 9,030,921 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 369/59.19
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/10222 clock-related aspects, e.g. phase or frequency adjustment or bit synchronisation dedicated sync patterns in the modulation code G11B20/1403
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/10259 simultaneous timing recovery for multiple parallel tracks
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/14 using self-clocking codes
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/1426 conversion to or from block codes or representations thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 7/0065 Recording, reproducing or erasing by using optical interference patterns, e.g. holograms
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 7/00772 on record carriers storing information in the form of optical interference patterns, e.g. holograms

Abstract

Techniques are provided for increasing spectral efficiency over data channels in a storage or communication system. In some embodiments, data may be encoded and transmitted over multiple channels. The transmitted data from the multiple channels may be considered together as a channel bundle, thereby increasing the edge transitions of the group of signals to improve clock recovery and reduce coding constraints. In some embodiments, the channel bit size is reduced to maximize data rates based on the reduced coding constraints. Furthermore, the channel bundle has only one channel with timing markers, so that a receiver may receive information from the channel bundle and recover clocking based on the timing markers in the one channel.

Claims

1. A method of communicating data, the method comprising:

transmitting data over a channel bundle comprising multiple channels, wherein the data transmitted over the channel bundle is arranged to be decoded together.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising:

encoding data using a run-length limited (RLL) encoding scheme, wherein the data is encoded to meet a minimum runlength constraint of the RLL encoding scheme.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the data is encoded to meet a maximum runlength constraint.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the data over a data bundle comprises:

encoding the data to be recorded to multiple data tracks of a holographic disk, wherein each of the multiple data tracks corresponds with one of the multiple channels.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein encoding the data to be recorded to the multiple data tracks comprises separately encoding multiple data streams, wherein each of the multiple data streams is to be recorded to one of the multiple data tracks.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein encoding the data to be recorded to the multiple data tracks comprises:

encoding the data to produce one encoded data stream; and

processing the one encoded data stream into multiple data streams, wherein each of the multiple data streams is to be recorded to one of the multiple data tracks.

7. The method of claim 1, comprising:

receiving the data from the channel bundle; and

recovering clock information for the data from the channel bundle.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein receiving the data from the channel bundle comprises detecting data from multiple data tracks of a holographic disk, wherein each of the multiple data tracks corresponds with one of the multiple channels.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein recovering clock information comprises recovering clock information of the data from the multiple channels substantially in parallel.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein clock information of the data from each of the multiple channels of the channel bundle is recovered substantially in parallel by clock recovery circuitry.

11. A method of communicating data, the method comprising:

receiving data from a channel bundle comprising multiple channels; and

recovering source data from the received data using one decoder.

12. The method of claim 11, comprising:

encoding source data to be transmitted in the channel bundle; and

providing timing information in the first optical channel.

13. An optical system, comprising:

an encoder system configured to encode source data into encoded data to be transmitted over a channel bundle comprising multiple channels;

a transmitter configured to transmit the encoded data through the channel bundle;

a receiver system configured to receive the encoded data from the channel bundle; and

only one decoder configured to decode the encoded data into source data.

14. The optical system of claim 13, wherein the encoder system is configured to encode the source data into encoded data using a run-length limited (RLL) code.

15. The optical system of claim 13, wherein the encoder system is configured to constrain the encoded optical data by a minimum runlength constraint.

16. The optical system of claim 13, wherein the encoder system comprises multiple encoders, each configured to encode a portion of the source data into a portion of the encoded data.

17. The optical system of claim 13, wherein the receiver system comprises multiple receivers, each configured to receive a portion of the encoded data from one of the multiple channels.

18. The optical system of claim 13, wherein the decoder is configured to decode the data from each of the multiple channels substantially simultaneously.

19. The optical system of claim 13, wherein the multiple channels are separated by one or more of space, wavelength, and polarization.

20. The optical system of claim 13, comprising an optical disk comprising the channel bundle.

21-23. -23. (canceled)

24. An optical storage system comprising a channel bundle comprising multiple optical channels, wherein data transmitted through the multiple optical channels of the channel bundle is received at only one decoder configured to decode the transmitted data.

25. The optical storage system of claim 24, comprising an optical disk comprising one or more channel bundles.