100-Gb/s Optical Communications A Microwave Engineer's Perspective

Optical communications is a quickly evolving field, driven by the ever-increasing need for communication bandwidth that has been—and still is—profoundly transforming our society, with telepresence offering exciting future possibilities. Over the next decade, we expect the field to mature substantially as high speed components enable more advanced modulation and digital signal processing. With the standardization of 100-Gb/s Ethernet well in progress, Terabit Ethernet is just over the horizon. As data rates continue to increase above 100 Gb/s, the role of the microwave engineer will become more and more critical to the success of next generation optical communication gear. There is a tremendous opportunity for the radio engineer to migrate his/her skills to work in the field of microwave signal integrity. This is an upand- coming field with lots of room for innovative research.