RF classification-based nonlinear distortion mitigation for 120 Gbit/s PAM8-modulated optical interconnects in IM/DD

Intensity modulation/direct detection (IM/DD) optical interconnect systems are susceptible to waveform distortion caused by complex nonlinearities. To reduce the effect of waveform distortion on signal transmission accuracy, in this paper, a random forest (RF) equalization algorithm based on decision tree (DT) integration is proposed for cost-sensitive IM/DD systems, which has the characteristics of nonlinear classification and regression. The performance of the RF equalizer is verified by simulation experiments on a 120 Gbps 8-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM8) transmission system using an electro-absorption-modulated laser (EML). Simulation studies show that whether it is a back-to-back (B2B) transmission system or a 10 km optical fiber transmission system, the RF equalization scheme can achieve much better bit error rate (BER) performance than the traditional equalization scheme. In addition, in both transmission cases, the RF equalization scheme enables efficient classification of signals and is much less simpler than the artificial neural network (ANN) equalization scheme.