The Point-to-Point Optical Transceiver project, led by a team of researchers from the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) at the University of Melbourne and Bell Labs/Alcatel-Lucent, redesigns the point-to-point optical transceiver. The resulting equipment—incorporating a new hardware design and a custom-built, optimized ASIC—will provide a 30-fold increase in energy efficiency compared to today’s state-of-the-art optical transceiver. The new transceiver can be coupled to adaptive powering schemes for further energy efficiency gains. It is expected to save energy costs for Internet Service Providers, and will benefit both businesses and consumers who want a high-capacity, secure and direct fiber connection that is energy efficient.

1. Redesigned point-to-point
optical transceiver for
an energy-efficient access network
CEET : Alan Lee, Jack Li, Kerry Hinton
Bell Labs : Keith Chow, Prasanth Anthapadmanabhan
17 November 2014

2. Background
Optical access is the most energy-efficient wireline access
technology
Are there any solutions to further reduce the power consumption?
Our focus is on the point-to-point (PtP) access network
Investigate and develop
• Low-power hardware - transceiver, packet-switch, system architecture
• Power-saving software – adaptive power control, sleep-mode operation
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3. Power consumption of PtP optical TRx 2010
Optical transceiver (TRx) consumes
- up to 40% of the power consumption (ref: European CoC)
TRx operates at the max. power consumption
- regardless of the link conditions (e.g. distance)
Our goal
Reduce the power consumption of the TRx
Develop new TRx hardware and software for a PtP connectivity
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4. Realization of low-power PtP TRx
Redesign the electronics (ASIC) for PtP connectivity
With a data rate of upto 1 Gb/s
With a higher energy-efficient architecture in CMOS
Transistors are built in blocks
• Enables “turn-on-as-you-go”
• Provides flexibility for power adaptation
Develop an adaptive power control algorithm
Automatically optimize the power consumption
• During the link initialization
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5. Applications of the PtP transceiver
5
Internet service
provider (ISP)
Subscriber ONU ONU
PtP Business internet subscribers In-premise network
Devices
Business
Residential

6. Physical Testbed – HD video streaming
6
ONU
20km
Fiber
Power
meter
Receiver
Transmitter
OLT
ASIC on PCB

7. Measured power consumption
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CEET TRx Power (mW) A Commercial TRx power (mW)
Transmitter 17.5 310
Receiver 5.5 500
Total <23 mW 810 mW
Energy improvement per transceiver > 30x

8. Applying to the global PtP business subscriber links
Between local exchanges and business subscribers
In-premise networks
Overall power consumption is reduced by 46%
1.1 TWh ≈ 160,000 cars off-the-road annually *
Global power saving
8 *Ref. : http://www.epa.gov/

9. Contribution to Green Meter (2010 vs.2020)
Comparing PtP access technologies between 2010 & 2020
The use of our new TRx in the consumer in-home networks
And other expected hardware improvements
The power consumption will be reduced by 80%
= 40 fold overall energy-efficiency improvement
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Residential