Optical Analog-to-Digital Converters

CONTENTS:
⚫ Introduction
⚫ Performance Measures of ADCs
⚫ Performance Limitations
⚫ Review of Optical ADCs
⚫ Comparisons of Electronic and Optical ADCs
⚫ Conclusions
⚫ References
How ADC works?
2 Stages:

❑ Sampling:
• Sample-Hold Circuit

❑ Quantizing and Encoding

• Resolution
Performance Measures Of ADCs:
Sampling Rate:
To process signals with larger bandwidth the ADCs
must have higher sampling rates.
Conversion Rate:
It Specifies how fast a final digitized code is generated by an ADC.
Resolution:
Spurious-free dynamic range:
Spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) is a nonlinear measure
defined as the ratio of a single-tone signal amplitude to the
largest harmonic component within the frequency band of
interest.
⚫ It is usually expressed in dB.
⚫ SFDR describes the ability of an ADC to convert high frequency
signals without adding distortion. In communication
applications , it quantifies the separation of channels in a
digital receiver.
Performance Limitations
⚫ Thermal Noise:
A variety of noise sources contribute to the noise level at the
input of an ADC, including thermal noise, shot noise, 1/f noise
and input referred noise. All of them can be modeled as a
noise generated by an equivalent thermal resistor Reff. The
noise level can be calculated by integrating the noise density
spectrum over the full Nyquist band fs amp/[Link] is given as

Where k is Boltzmann’s constant, 1.38 × 10-23 J/K; T is the temperature in

Kelvin, and Reff is an effective thermal resistance that lumps together the
effects of all noise sources.
Aperture jitter:
⚫ Jitter noise comes from uncertainty in sampling
time and interval, which vary from sample to sample.
⚫ The standard deviation of the timing offset Δt is called
aperture jitter, or timing jitter, expressed as τa.
⚫ Timing jitter introduces sample error in amplitude.
⚫ If the input is a sinusoidal signal, then the error is:
Model for sampling jitter. The red pulse indicates the position
of an ideal pulse. The figure shows an offset of Δt and
corresponding error of ΔV .
Comparator Ambiguity:
⚫ The comparator is primarily an amplifier and a
regenerator.
⚫ Upon receipt of a latch command the regenerator
disconnects its output from the input and multiplies the
signal by a growing exponential, et/τ, until saturation is
reached.
⚫ At a sufficient time after latch the comparator output
signal becomes and remains a digital ‘1’ or ‘0’. However if
the growing time is not sufficient, the latched signal may
fall in the neighborhood of the threshold value and the
logic circuits following the comparator cannot distinguish
unambiguously, causing ambiguity errors.
Why we are going to optical
ADC?
• The time jitter of optical sources is in the order of a few
picoseconds or femto seconds, which is about 2 orders lower
than electronic clocks, making ADCs above 100 GS/s possible.
That implies RF signals with 50 GHz of bandwidth can be
directly converted.

• Second, optical ADCs decouple the electrical signal to be

sampled and the optical signals of post sampling, and hence
reduce interference.

• Third, post sampling or quantized optical signals are easy to

distribute by fiber and can be controlled remotely.
Hybrid optic-electronic ADC:
• Employ optical sampling followed by electronic quantization

• Modulates the electrical signal onto the power intensity of

an optical impulse train

• Uses a Mach-Zehnder modulator to perform the

electrical-to-optical conversion

• The key issue in hybrid ADCs is to channelize the high-speed

sampled optical pulses and ensure channels match in amplitude
and time
Time interleaving :
 To achieve high resolution (or large SFDR) in a time-interleaving ADC,
the following condition must be met :

•The sampling time of the interleaved ADCs must be uniform.

•The converter-to-converter gains and offset must be precisely

matched.

•The crosstalk between electronic ADC converters and

sample-to-sample memory effects must be minimal.
WDM channelized ADC :

FM - Faraday mirrors
EDFA - Erbium doped fiber
amplifiers
MLFL - Mode-locked fiber laser
PBS - Polarizing beam splitter
EOM - Electro optic modulator
Time stretching ADC (TSADC) :
• Similar to a wavelength channelized ADC

• RF signal modulates an optical signal with a broadband

continuous spectrum rather than modulating optical pulses
With discrete wavelengths

Advantages of hybrid ADC :

• The ultra-fast speed of optical sampling together with the

high-resolution of electronic ADCs
 Disadvantages of hybrid ADC :
• In hybrid ADCs the digitized output signals are electrical and are
not distributed as easily as optical signals

• Hybrid architectures usually use multiple electronic ADCs

making power dissipation much higher

Limitations :
• Due to time uncertainty and amplitude mismatch between
channels , resolution of hybrid ADC is limited
All-optical ADC :
• The spatial sampler converts the analog signal into
time-discrete angular information.

• The angular information is then collected and detected by a

sensor array at a fixed position, which is performed by spatial
quantizer.

• Repetition rates of mode locked lasers and the RF bandwidth

of photo detectors is in the order of 100 GHz

• The resolution of the AOADC is mainly determined by the

angular resolution of the optical spatial sampler.
Mach-Zehnder based
AOADC :
• The best known optical ADC, also the first optical ADC, was
developed based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer

• In this the input RF signal is simultaneously applied to the

parallel Mach-Zehnder interferometer array.

•The resulting parallel optical outputs are a Gray code

representing the input signal amplitude.

•This simple idea highlighted the benefits of all-optical ADCs

including high sampling rate and direct encoding, as well as
isolation of input and sampled signals
Electro-optic modulator

A voltage applied to the modulator electrodes produces a

relative phase retardation for the two arms of the
interferometer, which results in intensity modulation of the
output beam.
Flash AOADC :
• The flash AOADC quantizes the optical signal using variable
electro-absorption semiconductor absorbers
OADCs based on tunable
lasers :
• Tunable laser is used for sampling and optical filters are used
for quantizing

•The resolution of this ADC depends upon the total tunable

range of the laser and the filter resolution

•The pass band in the spectral domain of each filter is a periodic

pattern, and the period is doubled from one bit to next bit.

•The pass bands behave like digital codes. The pass band and
stop band of the filters can be organized as either binary code
or Gray code. If the spectral line carrying information of the RF
signal falls into the pass band, the output is “1,” otherwise it is
a “0”.
Material Considerations:
⚫ The substrate must be capable of supporting low-loss
channel waveguides, and should be available in large area
single crystals.
⚫ It is desirable that it to have high resistivity and a low
dielectric loss tangent.
⚫ The drive voltage corresponding to a given optical phase
change should be as low as possible.
 Advantages of AOADC :
• The AOADC is inherently woks with high sampling rates.

• It allows easy generation of any digital code i.e gray code also
directly generated.

•The AOADC requires lower driving voltage and speed of this

one is very high.

•The AOADC consumes lower power.

Comparisons:
⚫ Electronic ADCs are mature, commercially available and high in
resolution but they are not capable of A-to-D conversion at
sampling rates above 10 GS/s at present. Optical ADCs have
shown incomparable sampling rates but they need to improve
their resolution and feasibility.
⚫ The number of comparators would be dramatically reduced,
from 2N-l to N, for an N-bit converter (e.g., from 63 to 6 for a
6-bit converter). This would substantially reduce the electrical
power drain of the unit and would greatly simplify the timing
problems which occur in electronic converters because of the
large number of comparators.
⚫ A unique feature of the optical A/D converter is that
the optical output of the coder could be recorded
directly on moving photographic film. This might
make it possible to collect and make a permanent
record of wideband transient analog signals.
⚫ Signal sampling with optical pulses could eliminate
the need for a sample-and-hold circuit, a
performance limiting component in conventional high
speed A/D converters. The clock and sample-and-hold
circuit are sources of equipment-related errors in
conventional A/D converters.
References
⚫ [Link]/mechatronics_course
⚫ [Link]/
⚫ R. H. Walden, “Analog-to-Digital Converter Survey and
Analysis”, IEEE Journal of selected areas in communications,
vol. 17, No. 4, April 1999, pp539-550
⚫ H. F. Taylor, “Electro-Optic A/D Converter, US patent 4058722
⚫ D. C. Lewis and H: F . Taylor, “An integrated optical analog-todigital
converter,” presented at the NATO/AGARD Conf. onOptical Fibers,
Integrated Optics and their Military Applications,London, England,
May 1978.
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