Machine learning of SVM classification utilizing complete

binary tree structure for PAM-4/8 optical interconnection

Guoyao Chen1, Lin Sun1, Ke Xu2, Jiangbing Du1, * and Zuyuan He1
1
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
2
Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, Shenzhen Graduate School, Harbin Institute of
Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
*dujiangbing@sjtu.edu.cn

Abstract: A machine learning method of effective nonlinear decision frame for PAM-N system
based on support vector machine (SVM) using complete binary tree (CBT) structure is
demonstrated in this work. The simulations results indicate improved performance by the
proposed classifier which enhances the power sensitivity by 2-dB and 6-dB at the receiver side
in 100-Gbps PAM-4 and PAM-8 systems respectively.
OCIS codes: (060.4510) Optical communications; (200.4650) Optical interconnects.
1. Introduction
The intra-datacentre connection spurs the development of advanced optical interconnects with huge capacity and
low power consumption. To meet this urgent demands, advanced modulation formats provide efficient solution
with improved performance, like pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), carrierless amplitude phase modulation
(CAP) and discrete multi-tone modulation (DMT). Among them, PAM is relatively advantageous with rather
simple implementation and high spectrum efficiency [1, 2]. However, PAM with widely-spread spectrum shows
weak robust to channel fading and nonlinear impairment. Considering the channel fading due to dispersion and
limited bandwidth of transceiver equipment, feed-forward equalizer (FFE), decision feedback equalizer (DFE)
and maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE) are widely accepted to improve the transmission
performance [3]. On the other hand, multi-level signals, typically PAM-N, are very sensible to the eye linearity.
To mitigate this nonlinear distortion, machine-learning based DSP methods are very efficient after prosper training
process [4]. The DSP method based on one-versus-rest rule SVMs (OVR-SVMs) has been applied in PAM-4
system, and exhibits its advantages in improving the tolerance to chromatic dispersion (CD) [5]. However, OVR-
SVMs are difficult to train and the training process sometimes causes much deviation.
In this paper, a nonlinear decision method for PAM-N based on machine learning has been proposed. The
CBT architecture combined with SVM classifiers are utilized to decode the PAM-N signals at the receiver side,
for numerical analysis. Moreover, CBT-SVMs are faster in both training and classifying than other usual multi-
class SVMs such as OVR-SVMs and OVO-SVMs, and CBT structure is rather appropriate in PAM-N system.
With the help of the CBT-SVMs, simulated 100-Gbps PAM-4 transmission over 50-m MMF achieves BER below
7%FEC limitation with received optical power at -7.60-dBm. Moreover, the CBT-SVMs classifier exerts more
outstanding advantages in PAM-8 system.
2. Principle
The SVM process can be described as finding the maximal margin hyper-plane to define the decision function of
the classifier. As the classified data is not always linearly-separable, SVM maps them into other dot product space
(called the feature space) to meet the separable condition, the detailed process is shown in Fig.1. Nonlinear
mapping is described as: Ȱ˖࣬ Գ ՜ ࣠. Performing the SVM process, it requires the evaluation of dot products,
as ݇ሺ‫ݔ‬ǡ ‫ݕ‬ሻ ؔ ൫Ȱሺ‫ݔ‬ሻǡ Ȱሺ‫ݕ‬ሻ൯. Clearly, in high-dimension, the right-hand side of this equation is expensive to
compute, so a simple matrix k is used to replace effectively.

Input space DAC VCSEL PD EA ADC

Feature space
Offline Processing

Interpolation
Pre-emphasis

ĭ SVM
Generator
Mapping
Symbol

PRBS

Re-sampling
SVM SVM

PAM-N Generator CBT-SVMs

Fig. 1. SVM mapping. Fig. 2. Simulation setup.

As the results, the nonlinear decision function is evolved into the formulation:
݂ሺ‫ݔ‬ሻ ൌ •‹‰൫σ௟௜ୀଵ ߙ௜ ή ݇ሺ‫ݔ‬ǡ ‫ݔ‬௜ ሻ ൅ ܾ൯ (1)
The parameters ߙ௜ are computed as the solution of a quadratic programming problem, the sequential minimal

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optimization (SMO) algorithm is used to solve the problem.
To decode the PAM-N signals, the decision frame contains N-1 SVM classifiers. For instance, the
corresponding CBT architecture of PAM-4 system is shown in Fig. 2. Two steps of SVM classification can
efficiently decode PAM-4 signals by employing CBT structure. Consequently, CBT-SVMs are rather appropriate
in PAM-N system and improved performance can be expected.
3. Results and discussion
We conducted physical simulations of MMF-based PAM-N system on VPI transmissionmakers. The simulation
setup for PAM-N transmission is depicted in Fig. 2. The key parameters of equipment are set as practical as
possible, according to existed commercial products. The bandwidth of DAC as well as VCSEL was set at 40 GHz,
simulated by 4th Bessel function, and a photo-detector with 0.9-A/W sensitivity is used to detect the optical signal.
The thermal noise of PD was set as 10-12 A/ξHz. The offline DSP at receiver side consists of linear interpolation,
resampling, symbol-decision (CBT-SVMs).

Fig. 4. (a)-(b): PAM-4 eyes in the case of optical B2B and after 80-m MMF, (c)-(d): PAM-8 eyes in optical B2B and after 40-m MMF.
(a) 0 Optical B2B
After 50-m MMF (b) Optical B2B
After 30-m MMF
(c) 0
-2

Power Sensitivity (dBm)

Optical B2B using CBT-SVMs PAM-4
-1
Optical B2B using CBT-SVMs
After 50-m using CBT-SVMs -1 After 30-m using CBT-SVMs
-4
PAM-8
PAM-4 using CBT-SVMs
-2 PAM-8 using CBT-SVMs
-6
log(BER)
log(BER)

-3 7% FEC limit

-4 -2 -8
-10
-5 7% FEC limit
-6 -12
-3
-7 -14
0 20 40 60 80
-14 -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
Received Power (dBm) Received Power (dBm) Distances (m)
Fig. 5. (a): PAM-4 BER curves, (b): PAM-8 BER curves, (c): optical power sensitivity at receiver side at different transmission distances.
We capture the eye-diagrams of 100-Gbps PAM-4 and PAM-8, as shown in Fig. 4. (a)-(d). The received
optical power is -5.3-dBm. It can be seen that the signal suffers worse inter-symbol interference (ISI) due to
dispersion with the transmission distance increasing. Analysing the bathtub curves, processed by CBT-SVM. The
BER reduction is rather obvious, with improved the jitter sensitivity at the same time.
Then 100-Gbps PAM-4 signals and PAM-8 signals are transmitted over 50-m and 30-m MMF respectively.
The BER curves are shown in Fig.5. (a)-(b). The CBT-SVMs classifier reduces the received power nearly 3-dB
in PAM-4 system to get 7%FEC limitation, assists PAM-8 system to achieve BER below 7%FEC limitation with
received optical power at nearly -3-dBm. Sensitivity is defined as the minimum optical power to achieve BER
below 0.035. Fig.5. (c) denotes sensitivity as function of transmission distances. It can be obviously seen that the
CBT-SVMs enhance nearly 2-dBm sensitivity in PAM-4 system. CBT-SVMs show distinguished performance in
PAM-8 system, over 6-dBm sensitivity reduction.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, we proposed a nonlinear symbol-decision method based on CBT structure using SVM. The nonlinear
impairment of PAM signals is efficiently mitigated employing the proposed method. Performance improvement
of CBT-SVMs are more obvious when decoding multi-level signals like PAM-8.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (61675128, 61620106015,
61327812,), STCSM (15511103102) STCSM (15511103102) and SMSTPP (JCYJ20150403161923530).
References
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