HP Labs Technical Reports

Low Overhead Block Coding for Multi-Gb/s Links

Coles, Alistair; Cunningham, David

HPL-98-168

Keyword(s): block coding; 16B18B; fibre optic

Abstract: An 8B10B block coding scheme is currently employed in several fibre optic applications operating at approximately 1Gb/s. This code results in a symbol rate that is 25% greater than the data rate (i.e. 25% overhead). We describe an alternative block coding scheme which may be used to implement lower overhead coding for fiber optic multi-Gb/s links. The coding scheme is extremely simple to implement, generates a d.c. balanced signal and provides non-data codewords for control signaling. As an example, a 16B18B code (overhead 12.5%) is described.

8 Pages

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