Abstract:
A micro-electro-mechanical (MEM] optical device having a reduced footprint f or increasing yield on a substrate. The MEM device includes an optical element having an outer edge and supported by a support structure disposed on a substrate. The support structure is mechanically connected to the substrate through first and secon d pairs of beams which move the structure to an active position for elevating the optic device above the substrate. When in an elevated position, the optical device can be selectively tilted for deflecting optic signals. The beams are connected at one end to the support structure, at the other end to the substrate and are disposed so that the first and second bea m ends are located proximate the optical device outer edge. In a preferred embodiment, a stiction force reducing element is included on the outer edge of the optical device f or reducing the contact area between the optic device edge and the substrate.
Abstract:
An optical transport system (OTS) having a plurality of optical transponders (OTs) connected via one or more optical links and adapted to communicate with one another using respective rate-adaptive forward-error-correction (FEC) codes. In one embodiment, the OTS has a rate control unit (RCU) adapted to configure the OTs to dynamically adjust the rates of the FEC codes (310) based on an estimated performance margin (306) for each link between two respective communicating OTs to optimize the overall capacity of the OTS while maintaining an adequate, but not excessive, overall system margin.
Abstract:
Methods and apparatus are described for generating and receiving amplitude and differential-phase encoded signals in which the number of phase states at a given amplitude level is always less than or equal to that at a higher amplitude level and at least two amplitude levels have different numbers of phase states.