Date: 15/03/2010

Optical modulation analyzer from Agilent for testing optical links

Agilent has introduced system impairments analysis for chromatic dispersion (CD) and first-order polarization mode dispersion (PMD) with the N4391A optical modulation analyzer. The new tools allow system engineers to characterize distortions of constellation diagrams caused by the CD or PMD of an optical link. Agilent says this is the industry's first such test-gear.

The N4391A can analyze signal integrity of a vector modulated signal (e.g., error vector magnitude and quadrature error). The N4391A offers measurement and compensation of the link's CD and first order PMD by analyzing the received signals to find out the root cause of constellation distortions The CD and PMD compensation helps system researchers and engineers to quantify their signal quality along the link and down to the receiver input. This is accomplished by correcting for CD and PMD distortions in the constellation diagram and displaying CD and first order PMD values in the status line of the N4391A.

The raw digitized data coming from the N4391A's optical coherent receiver can be processed using Microsoft's .NET(r) framework and included as a user-provided library. N4391A can handle any number of user algorithms in a user-defined sequence.

"Our optical modulation analyzer provides the highest flexibility of analysis tools for advanced research of next-generation optical transmission systems," said Juergen Beck, general manager of Agilent's Digital Photonic Test business. "The addition of CD and PMD analysis offers system test engineers a powerful tool for transmission system characterization with the option to include user-developed processing algorithms."

Price (U.S.): CD, PMD will be offered with an extra license for $2,900
Availability: July 2010

For more info visit www.agilent.com/find/oma