Interleaved ECC Transmission Across Optical Links for Error Clusters
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Solution Overview
Problem
Optical networks face challenges in correcting multi-bit errors that occur in clusters, as existing error correction codes (ECC) can become ineffective when too many errors occur within a codeword, leading to incomplete error correction.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of an interleaving technique where ECC codewords are spread across multiple optical links, using serial-to-parallel and parallel-to-serial circuits to interleave data bits, ensuring that multi-bit errors on one link correspond to single-bit errors across multiple codewords, thereby enhancing resistance to error clusters.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional ECC is used to correct transmission errors, then single-bit and some multi-bit errors can be corrected, but error correction becomes ineffective when too many errors occur in clusters within a codeword
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the data stream by dividing it into multiple parallel data streams, where each stream carries a portion of the codeword. This segmentation ensures that errors affecting one stream do not concentrate all errors within a single codeword, thereby enabling the ECC to correct errors that would otherwise be uncorrectable when clustered together.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a temporal dimension to error distribution by staggering the transmission of different codeword portions across multiple time slots and parallel streams. This dimensional transformation spreads errors that would naturally cluster in space across different time instances, allowing the ECC to handle them effectively.
2Reliability
If data is transmitted over optical links with ECC, then error correction information is added to data, but errors tend to occur in groups making correction difficult when too many errors are in a single codeword
Solution Approach 1:
The transmitted data is segmented into multiple parallel streams, with each stream carrying interleaved portions of different codewords. This segmentation prevents concentration of errors within a single codeword, ensuring that even when errors occur in groups on the optical link, they are distributed across multiple codewords that can each be corrected independently.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies preliminary interleaving and segmentation of codewords before transmission over the optical link. This preliminary action prepares the data structure in advance so that when errors occur during transmission, they are already distributed in a manageable pattern that enables effective correction at the receiver.
Data Source
AI summary
An optical device transmits ECC codewords using an interleaved technique in which a single ECC codeword is transmitted over multiple optical links. In one particular implementation, the device may include an ECC circuit configured to supply ECC codewords in series, the codewords being generated by the ECC circuit based on input data and each of the codewords including error correction information and a portion of the data. The device may further include a serial-to-parallel circuit configured to receive each of the codewords in succession, and supply data units in parallel, each of the data units including information from a corresponding one of the codewords; an interleaver circuit to receive the data units in parallel and output a second data units in parallel, each of the second data units including bits from different ones of the data units; and a number of output lines, each of which supplying a corresponding one of the second data units.