| Summary: | In optical transmitters generating multi-level constellations, optical modulators are preceded by Electronic Digital-to-Analog-Converters (eDAC). It is advantageous to use eDAC-free Optical Analog to Digital Converters (oDAC) to directly convert digital bitstreams into multilevel PAM/QAM optical signals. State-of-the-art oDACs are based on Segmented Mach-Zehnder-Modulators (SEMZM) using multiple modulation segments strung along the MZM waveguides to serially accumulate binary-modulated optical phases. Here we aim to assess performance limits of the Serial oDACs (SEMZM) and introduce an alternative improved Multi-Parallel oDAC (MPoDAC) architecture, in particular based on arraying multiple binary-driven MZMs in parallel: Multi-parallel MZM (MPMZM) oDAC. We develop generic methodologies of oDAC specification and optimization encompassing both SEMZM and MPMZM options in Direct-Detection (DD) and Coherent-Detection (COH) implementations. We quantify and compare intrinsic performance limits of the various serial/parallel DD/COH subclasses for general constellation orders, comparing with the scant prior-work on the multi-parallel option. A key finding: COH-MPMZM is the only class synthesizing ‘perfect’ (equi-spaced max-full-scale) constellations while maximizing energy-efficiency-SEMZM/MPMZM for DD are less accurate when maximal energy-efficiency is required. In particular, we introduce multiple variants of PAM4|8 DD and QAM16|64 COH MPMZMs, working out their accuracy vs. energy-efficiency-and-complexity tradeoffs, establishing their format-reconfigurability (format-flexible switching of constellation order and/or DD/COH).
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