July 20, 2007, Ossining, NY--RSoft Design Group, a photonics-design-automation software company, has released its new Optical Communication Design Suite version 4.7, which includes OptSim and its multimode companion ModeSYS. The release includes a decision-feedback equalizer (DFE), a feed-forward equalizer (FFE), and an electronic-dispersion-compensation (EDC) model with minimum mean-square error (MMSE) criterion-coefficient optimization and advanced D(Q)PSK models for bit rates of up to 100 Gbit/s and beyond. RSoft says it is the first to introduce such critical models to optical-communication design.
With its DFE-EDC with automatic-coefficient-optimization model, OptSim is well-suited to design and simulate multimode and single-mode systems deploying EDC at the receiver, based on standards such as 10GBASE-LRM and ITU G.959.1. The model enables OptSim 4.7 users to specify many options, including the number of feed-forward and feedback taps. When the number of feedback taps is equal to zero, the model degenerates into FFE-EDC mode. The coefficients can also be manually inserted so that the user can perturb their optimal value to study the system resilience to suboptimal EDC.
Advanced D(Q)PSK is an increasingly important modulation format, being (currently) the only solution capable of reaching single-channel serial bitrate of 100 Gbit/s and beyond. OptSim 4.7 has several capabilities that can be used to further investigate D(Q)PSK system design, including new transmitters, receivers, and bit-error-rate models, as well as its accurate nonlinear-fiber model.
Other highlights within OptSim 4.7 include a new Liekki Application Designer interface for device-level fiber-laser/amplifier simulation inside a system simulation, an updated Jones-matrix transfer-function model to support the latest of Luna Technology's measurement files, and a new compact transient erbium-doped fiber-amplifier model. Other graphical-user-interface and framework enhancements include a new application gallery for organizing built-in examples and user-designed project files, direct access to application notes from project layout, and an enhanced project-archiving wizard. In addition, OptSim 4.7 officially supports the Microsoft Vista operating system.