2010 Volume E93.C Issue 5 Pages 573-578
We experimentally studied the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) tolerance of an feed-forward equalizer (FFE) electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) IC in the absence of adaptive control, in 43-Gbit/s RZ-DQPSK transmission. Using a 3-tap FFE IC composed of InP HBTs, differential group delay (DGD) tolerance at a 2-dB Q penalty is shown to be extended from 25ps to up to 29ps. When a polarization scrambler is used, the tolerance is further extended to 31ps. This value is close to the tolerance obtained with adaptive control, without a polarization scrambler.