Passive Optical Devices for 5G Application(Part I)

With the rise of 5G technologies and massive deployment of 5G base stations, wireless access of terminals with high speed and large capacity is realized. Meanwhile, the traffic in optical fiber network increases rapidly. It is predicted that the current optical fiber network will become the bottleneck of information exchange in the future 12-18 months. The upgrading of optical fiber network is urgent. The representative trend is that the technologies for long-haul network (LHN) will be sunk to metropolitan area network (MAN), including DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing), ROADM (Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer) and coherent receiving techniques. This paper discusses some of the passive optical devices for the coming 5G applications.

1. CDC ROADM Based on MCS
The demand for increasing bandwidth promotes the upgrading of all-optical network (AON). As key parts of AON, the market of ROADM and related passive optical devices is expected to grow rapidly. In the nodes of optical fiber network, any wavelengths can be downloaded/uploaded via ROADMs. With the rapid growth of Internet traffic, the traditional ROADM nodes can’t meet the requirements. The new generation of ROADMs are required to be colorless, directionless and contentionless (CDC ROADM).

The Structures of ROADM

What’s CDC-F ROADM?
A ROADM node has a network node interface (NNI) and a user network interface (UNI). The NNI interconnects DWDM signals from/to multiple directions. The DWDM signals are switched between different directions in wavelength granularity. The UNI downloads signals designated to the node and uploads signals from the node in wavelength granularity. In order to realize non-blocking switching and adding/dropping of wavelengths, the new generation of ROADM nodes are required to be colorless, directionless and contentionless (CDC ROADM).