Integrated Silicon Photonics Remote Radio Frontend (RRF) for Single-Sideband (SSB) Millimeter-Wave Radio-Over-Fiber (ROF) Systems

Abstract

Radio-over-fiber (ROF)-based mobile fronthaul network supporting the baseband unit and simple remote radio head is a promising network architecture for future wireless networks. In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a silicon photonics (SiPh)-based remote radio frontend (RRF) for the mm-wave ROF systems. The proposed SiPh-based RRF consisted of an integrated Mach-Zehnder modulator and a micro-ring modulator, producing a single-sideband 40 GHz millimeter-wave orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing ROF signal, which is robust against fiber chromatic dispersion in the mobile fronthaul transmission. The RRF is fabricated using SiPh platform and could be potentially low cost. High split-ratios can be potentially achieved. Data rate of 7.813 Gbit/s per wavelength channel is achieved in the experiment. Numerical analysis is also performed; there are good matches of the simulation and experimental results.

Heterogeneous Optical Access Networks: Enabling Low-Latency 5G Services With a Silicon Photonic Smart Edge

“…Last but not least, we propose the use of SiP whose merits include its compatibility with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors (CMOS) technology, its high integration of functional blocks and its low-cost and high-quality silicon-on-insulator (SoI) wafers [13]. SiP has been envisioned to play important roles in optical-wireless convergence [14], [15]. These attributes are essential in enabling heterogeneous services.…”

A comprehensive review of Millimeter wave based radio over fiber for 5G front haul transmissions

“…Several research work have been currently being reported over this system for the 5G front haul transmission system such as low cost remote radio frontend based on silicon photonics consisting of Mach Zehnder Modulator (MZM) integrated with micro-ring modulator (5) , analog photonic link based on dual parallel phase modulators with wavelength division multiplexing suppressing third order inter-modulation distortion and enhancing the spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) (6) , bias free silicon based Optical single sideband (OSSB) modulator based on Dual drive MZM (DD-MZM) and silicon photonics eliminating bias drifting problem and the requirement for bias control and tracking circuits (7) . Miao Kong et al simultaneously generated wired and wireless signal by utilizing dual-polarized MZM reducing the power penalty by placing an interleaver (8) .…”

Radio over Fiber: An Alternative Broadband Network Technology for IoT

“…One of the main disadvantages of RFoF systems is that they require high-speed circuit design and high-performance photonic devices, therefore increasing the power consumption and the overall cost of the DAS significantly. Moreover, at higher frequencies [21], there are undesired effects such as power penalty, fading, and nonlinearities, that induce spectrum broadening of baseband data, around the carrier signal [15,[22][23][24][25][26].…”

“…The signal is generated at the BS with the same modulation format as the RF signal, but at a lower frequency [15,26,27]. Therefore, the flexibility of IFoF RAUs is just a step below RFoF as it is almost transparent to the communication standard, with the only need of tuning the RF carrier frequency.…”