Enhanced digital diagnostics for optical PAM apparatus

• US 9,780,881 B1
• Filed: 10/13/2015
• Issued: 10/03/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/13/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Marvell Asia Pte Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Original Assignee: Inphi Corporation
• Inventors: Rope, Todd, Nagarajan, Radhakrishnan L., Riani, Jamal, Khandelwal, Pulkit
• Primary Examiner(s): Pascal, Leslie
• Application Number:
  US14/881,401
• Time in Patent Office: 721 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/0731 Testing or characterisation of optical devices, e.g. amplifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/0795 Performance monitoring; Measurement of transmission parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/40 Transceivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/524 Pulse modulation

Abstract

A Pulse Amplitude Modulated (PAM) optical device utilizing multiple wavelengths, features a communications interface having enhanced diagnostics capability. New registers are created to house additional diagnostic information, such as error rates. The diagnostic information may be stored in raw form, or as processed on-chip utilizing local resources.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

collecting data in a debugging memory of an optical transceiver of a module;

communicating the data from the debugging memory to an engine of a master logic system;

the engine of the master logic system processing the data to produce Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) information relevant for diagnostic purposes; and

housing the ISI information in a new register of the master logic system.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the engine determining a non-linear ISI component by subtracting a linear ISI component.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising communicating the diagnostic output across an interface to the host for further diagnostic processing.