Notes on Third-party Optical Transceiver Testing & Verification
Since every second witnesses the shocking fast changes in this modern world, it's not advised that some enterprises or organization turn a cold shoulder to the cutting-edge technologies. Instead, they should keep on up-to data information to make the decisions in real time, with great attention and investment placed on their data center infrastructure which constitutes the strategic assets they own. In this information-quickly--getting process, optical transceivers make the big contribution, as they are closely related to the promotion of big data transmission in data centers. For some companies, the optical transceivers from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) are a little expensive, and may cause the budget burden on them. As such, third-party optical transceivers have been brought to the market as a smart and creative solution to help save costs.
Then, question occurs. What does third-party mean? Why third-party optical transceivers are popular? If third-party optical transceivers are selected, how to test and verify them? Don’t worry. Follow this article and get the answers.
Firstly, third-suppliers exist in all sorts of industries, and they typically refer to those companies that have a high degree of specialization in some field. Third-party is a common term used in telecommunication market. Here, it’s necessary to tell OEM from third-party. In telecommunication market, OEMs aren’t really manufacturing anything, but rather, have things built for them under contract, and then “integrate” this solution under their brand name. Then there are OEMs that continue to supply components to other OEMs, while establishing a brand of their own. They can also be considered third-party for other OEMs, if they’ve not explicitly been brought into the fold as a vendor to that OEM.
In most cases, people prefer third-party optical transceivers to OEMs’. There is absolutely no difference between an officially-branded transceiver and a third-party transceiver regarding quality and performance, except cost. Fiberstore, as an outstanding third-party supplier of fiber optical products, offers various kinds of optical transceivers for different Gigabit standard applications, say SFP modules shown below (eg. Cisco MGBSX1 and MGBLX1). These two 1000BASE-SX SFPs listed in Fiberstore are fully compatible with Cisco. So long as optical transceivers meet the international standards, there is no question of compatibility between third-party optical transceivers and OEMs’. So, how to test and verify third-party optical transceivers?
It seems a little difficult to test and verify third-party transceiver modules, since there are many components from different suppliers in the entire network. To ensure they meet the system level requirements, it’s advised to consider the following points.
- Test Acceptable Bit-Error Ratio
It’s always required to operate within an acceptable bit-error ratio (BER) in a digital communication system. This is true whether you are testing an interface bus in a laptop computer or a telecommunications link. Generally speaking, when you’re testing component in a digital communication system, it should be no more than one error in 1012 bits. If the desired BER is not reached, the problem must be judged whether in the transmitter, or in receiver, or both.
- Ensure Interoperability With a Worst-Case Transmitter
Network specifications should determine if the worst-case transmitter will interoperate with a receiver. Transmitters should also have a signal sufficient enough to support the worst-case transceiver.
- Determine the Minimal Power Level & Jitter Level
A receiver needs to achieve a minimum power level, so as to achieve the BER target. The achieved level will dictate the minimum allowed output power. Likewise, if the receiver can only achieve a certain level of jitter, this will be used to define the maximum amount of jitter that can be received from the transmitter without malfunctioning. Transmitter parameters may specify the wavelength and the output waveform shape.
- Verify Compliance With Multiple Samples
Several waveform samples are required to remain compliant. Sometimes, a larger population of waveform samples will provide an accurate assessment of transmitter performance. The oscilloscope will collect more data, but as more samples are increased the likelihood of mask violations increase. Since the results are either pass or fail, it is important to acquire as many samples as possible to get an accurate assessment, which requires aligning the mask to the waveform.
- Understand Instrumentation Effects
It’s known that any transceiver test can be skewed according to the oscilloscope’s frequency response. You can achieve consistent results with a reference receiver. Most tests will use a fourth-order Bessel filter response, and the 3-dB bandwidth is at 75 percent of the data rate.
Of course, the ways to test and verify third-party optical transceivers are by no means limited to what have been mentioned in this article. Listed above are just a few. But when you keep these methods in mind, you can go on third-party optical transceiver testing and verification easily. Fiberstore third-party optical transceivers are tested and assured with high quality, fully compatible with famous brands. Besides Cisco transceivers talked above, HP, Juniper, Nortel transceivers can also be found in Fiberstore with low prices, like HP J4858C, a HP Compatible 1000BASE-SX SFP transceiver just costs US$ 6.00. Want to know more information about third-party optical transceivers, you can connect me directly at Linkedin @Fern Xu (Fiberstore).
