The leading trends such as cloud computing and big data drive the exponential traffic growth and the rise of 400G Ethernet. Data center networks are facing a larger bandwidth demand, and innovative technologies are required for infrastructure to meet shifting demands. Currently, there are two different signal modulation techniques examined for next-generation Ethernet: non-return to zero (NRZ), and pulse-amplitude modulation 4-level (PAM4). This article will take you through these two modulation techniques and compare them to find the optimal choice for 400G Ethernet.
NRZ and PAM4 Basics
NRZ is a modulation technique using two signal levels to represent the 1/0 information of a digital logic signal. Logic 0 is a negative voltage, and Logic 1 is a positive voltage. One bit of logic information can be transmitted or received within each clock period. The baud rate, or the speed at which a symbol can change, equals the bit rate for NRZ signals.
PAM4 is a technology that uses four different signal levels for signal transmission and each symbol period represents 2 bits of logic information (0, 1, 2, 3). To achieve that, the waveform has 4 different levels, carrying 2 bits: 00, 01, 10 or 11, as shown below. With two bits per symbol, the baud rate is half the bit rate.
Comparison of NRZ vs. PAM4
Bit Rate
A transmission with NRZ mechanism will have the same baud rate and bitrate because one symbol can carry one bit. 28Gbps (gigabit per second) bitrate is equivalent to 28GBdps (gigabaud per second) baud rate. While, because PAM4 carries 2 bits per symbol, 56Gbps PAM4 will have a line transmission at 28GBdps. Therefore, PAM4 doubles the bit rate for a given baud rate over NRZ, bringing higher efficiency for high-speed optical transmission such as 400G. To be more specific, a 400 Gbps Ethernet interface can be realized with eight lanes at 50Gbps or four lanes at 100Gbps using PAM4 modulation.
Signal Loss
PAM4 allows twice as much information to be transmitted per symbol cycle as NRZ. Therefore, at the same bitrate, PAM4 only has half the baud rate, also called symbol rate, of the NRZ signal, so the signal loss caused by the transmission channel in PAM4 signaling is greatly reduced. This key advantage of PAM4 allows the use of existing channels and interconnects at higher bit rates without doubling the baud rate and increasing the channel loss.
Signal-to-noise Ratio (SNR) and Bit Error Rate (BER)
According to the following figure, the eye height for PAM4 is 1/3 of that for NRZ, causing the PAM4 to increase SNR (Signal-Noise Ratio) by -9.54 dB (Link Budget Penalty), which impacts the signal quality and introduces additional constraints in high-speed signaling. The 33% smaller vertical eye opening makes PAM4 signaling more sensitive to noise, resulting in a higher bit error rate. However, PAM4 was made possible because of forward-error correction (FEC) that can help link system to achieve the desired BER.
Power Consumption
Reducing BER in a PAM4 channel requires equalization at the Rx end and pre-compensation at the Tx end, which both consume extra power than the NRZ link for a given clock rate. This means PAM4 transceivers generate more heat at each end of the link. However, the new state-of-the-art silicon photonics (SiPh) platform can effectively reduce energy consumption and can be used in 400G transceivers.
Shift from NRZ to PAM4 for 400G Ethernet
With massive data transmitted across the globe, many organizations pose their quest for migration towards 400G. Initially, 16× 25G baud rate NRZ is used for 400G Ethernet, such as 400G-SR16, but the link loss and size of the scheme can not meet the demands of 400G Ethernet. Whereas PAM4 enables higher bit rates at half the baud rate, designers can continue to use existing channels at potential 400G Ethernet data rates. As a result, PAM4 has overtaken NRZ as the preferred modulation method for electrical or optical signal transmission in 400G optical modules.
