Anritsu MP1800A 64 Gbaud PAM4 BER test solution

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The explosive growth in data traffic is driving the need to increase communication speed between servers and network equipment. The next generation of 400 GbE Ethernet standard uses the PAM modulation method to increase data transfers per unit time by increasing the symbol rate and adding more lanes.

PAM4 signals have an advantage over non-return-to-zero (NRZ) signalling by doubling the amount of data transferred per unit time; however, they can also result in technical issues, such as lowering the power consumption and increasing the S/N ratio. High-quality signal sources and high-input-sensitivity measurements are therefore required.

Anritsu’s MP1800A series signal quality analyser supports the evaluation of devices and optical modules meeting the latest communications standards and, with the addition of the MP1800A series multichannel pulse pattern generator (PPG) and error detector (ED), can easily support high-baud-rate NRZ and PAM4 methods as well as BER measurements using G0374A 64 Gbaud PAM4 DAC and MP1862A 56G/64 Gbps DEMUX.

The signal quality analyser is a plug-in module type bit error rate tester (BERT) that can generate up to eight channels of synchronised signals using the 32G multichannel PPG module. The G0374A is an accessory for the series that is used in combination with the MU183020A 32 Gbps multichannel PPG to generate 64 Gbaud NRZ/PAM4 signals by simple conversion of half-rate 32 Gbps NRZ signals. It can also be combined with the MP1862A 56G/64 Gbps DEMUX and MU183040B 28G/32 Gbps high-sensitivity ED to support BER measurement of high-baud-rate PAM4 signals.