Methods and apparatus for sub-carrier interleaving to improve overall forward error correction

US12057934B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Infinera Corp. · US

Inventors

• Sandy Thomson · Ottawa, CA
• Sofia Amado · Nuremberg, DE
• Aroutchelvame Mayilavelane · Victoria, CA
• Christopher Fludger · Nuremberg, DE
• Scott Pringle · Ottawa, CA
• Ahmed Awadalla · Ottawa, CA
• Han Henry Sun · Ottawa, CA
• Ting-Kuang Chiang · Saratoga, US
• Yuejian Wu · Woodlawn, CA

Key dates

• Filing date: Aug 16, 2021
• Grant date: Aug 6, 2024
• Expiry date: Aug 16, 2041

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H04B10/6165
• WIPO field: Telecommunications
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Consistent with the present disclosure, multiple forward error correction (FEC) encoders are provided for encoding a respective one of a plurality of data streams. A mechanism is provided to mix or interleave portions of the encoded data such that each subcarrier carries information associated with each data stream, as opposed to each subcarrier carrying information associated with only a corresponding one of the data streams. As a result, both higher SNR and low SNR optical subcarriers carry such information, such that errors occurring during transmission are distributed and not concentrated or limited to information associated with a single data stream. Accordingly, at the receive end, each FEC decoder decodes information having a similar overall error rate. By balancing the error rates across each FEC encoder/decoder pair, the overall ability to correct errors improves compared to a system in which mixing or interleaving is not carried out.