Systems and methods for providing diagnostic information using EDC transceivers

1. An optical transceiver comprising;

an optical receiver configured to convert a received optical signal on at least one optical channel into a corresponding electrical signal;

an optical transmitter configured to convert electrical signals into a corresponding optical signal;

a driver circuit coupled to the optical transmitter and configured to provide said electrical signals to the optical transmitter;

a controller integrated circuit in communication with the driver circuit;

electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) circuitry in communication with the controller circuit and configured to perform the following when receiving the corresponding electrical signals from the optical receiver:

an act of performing electronic dispersion compensation on the corresponding electrical signal received from the optical receiver; and

an act of generating diagnostics information concerning the electronic dispersion compensation; and

a communication mechanism configured to provide at least some of the diagnostics information generated by the EDC circuitry to a host interface, wherein the optical receiver, optical transmitter, driver circuit, EDC circuitry, and controller integrated circuit are integrated into the same transceiver housing.

2. The optical transceiver of claim 1 , wherein the optical transceiver is any one of a XFP, X2, XENPAK, SFP, SFF and GBIC transceiver.

3. The optical transceiver of claim 1 wherein the transceiver further comprises a clock and data recovery circuitry (CDR) configured to receive an electrical signal from a host device and to provide said electrical signal to the driver circuit, wherein the CDR circuitry is integrated into the same transceiver housing as the driver circuit.

4. The optical transceiver of claim 1 , wherein said controller integrated circuit comprises said communication mechanism.

5. The optical transceiver of claim 4 , wherein said controller integrated circuit communicates with said host device using a serial interface.

6. The optical transceiver of claim 1 , wherein said diagnostics information includes at least one of the following:

i) an indication that a state of said adaptive EDC circuitry is closer than a predetermined measure from a limit of its capability to achieve a desired level of receiver performance;

ii) a measure of how close a state of said adaptive EDC circuitry is to a known limit of its capability;

iii) an indication that said adaptive EDC circuitry is unable to achieve a desired level of receiver performance;

iv) a digital representation of a metric of a quality of said optical channel;

v) a digital representation of an impulse response of said optical channel;

vi) a digital representation of a frequency response of said optical channel;

vii) information on a time variation of a quality of the optical channel;

viii) a measure of a worst state of said optical channel over a period of time;

ix) a maximum usable data rate possible on said optical channel;

x) link performance data for the optical channel;

xi) information derived from a current tap weight value in an adaptive equalizer; and

xii) information derived from a measure of a quality of an equalized received signal.

7. The optical transceiver of claim 6 , wherein said diagnostics information is provided using at least one of an analog voltage on an output pin, a digital output pin, a warning flag, and an indicator light on the transceiver.

8. The optical transceiver of claim 6 , wherein said diagnostics information can be accessed by at least one of a memory mapped interface, a register based interface, and a command interface.

9. The optical transceiver of claim 6 , wherein said metric is one of a power penalty of an ideal linear equalizer and a power penalty of an ideal decision feedback equalizer.

10. The optical transceiver of claim 6 , wherein said maximum usable data rate is selected from a set of standardized link data rates.

11. An optical transceiver comprising an optical receiver configured to convert a received optical signal on at least one optical channel into a corresponding electrical signal, the transceiver further comprising electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) circuitry configured to receive the corresponding electrical signals, a method for providing diagnostics information to a host system, the method comprising the steps of:

performing electronic dispersion compensation on the corresponding electrical signal received from the optical receiver;

generating diagnostics information concerning the electronic dispersion compensation;

providing said diagnostics information to the host; and

using said diagnostics information to determine whether a given fiber optic connection is usable;

wherein said diagnostics information includes at least one of the following:

i) an indication that a state of said adaptive EDC circuitry is closer than a predetermined measure from a limit of its capability to achieve a desired level of receiver performance;

ii) a measure of how close a state of said adaptive EDC circuitry is to a known limit of its capability;

iii) an indication that said adaptive EDC circuitry is unable to achieve a desired level of receiver performance;

iv) a digital representation of a metric of a quality of said optical channel;

v) a digital representation of an impulse response of said optical channel;

vi) a digital representation of a frequency response of said optical channel;

vii) information on a time variation of a quality of the optical channel;

viii) a measure of a worst state of said optical channel over a period of time;

ix) a maximum usable data rate possible on said optical channel;

x) link performance data for the optical channel;

xi) information derived from a current tap weight value in an adaptive equalizer; and

xii) information derived from a measure of a quality of an equalized received signal.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein, if said determining step finds that said given fiber optic connection is not usable, further comprising a step for:

having an operator switch to a different fiber optic connection; and

repeating said determining step until a usable fiber optic connection is identified.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the host system alerts said operator to a result of said determining step.

14. An optical transceiver comprising an optical receiver configured to convert a received optical signal on at least one optical channel into a corresponding electrical signal, the transceiver further comprising electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) circuitry configured to receive the corresponding electrical signals, a method for providing diagnostics information to a host system, the method comprising the steps of:

performing electronic dispersion compensation on the corresponding electrical signal received from the optical receiver;

generating diagnostics information concerning the electronic dispersion compensation; and

providing said diagnostics information to the host;

wherein the diagnostics information comprises at least a link performance parameter of an current optical launch adapter and further comprising steps for:

comparing said link performance parameter to a predefined value;

using said diagnostics information to choose an alternative optical launch adapter;

wherein said diagnostics information includes at least one of the following:

i) an indication that a state of said adaptive EDC circuitry is closer than a predetermined measure from a limit of its capability to achieve a desired level of receiver performance;

ii) a measure of how close a state of said adaptive EDC circuitry is to a known limit of its capability;

iii) an indication that said adaptive EDC circuitry is unable to achieve a desired level of receiver performance;

iv) a digital representation of a metric of a quality of said optical channel;

v) a digital representation of an impulse response of said optical channel;

vi) a digital representation of a frequency response of said optical channel;

vii) information on a time variation of a quality of the optical channel;

viii) a measure of a worst state of said optical channel over a period of time;

ix) a maximum usable data rate possible on said optical channel;

x) link performance data for the optical channel;

xi) information derived from a current tap weight value in an adaptive equalizer; and

xii) information derived from a measure of a quality of an equalized received signal.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein, if said performance parameter does not meet said predefined value, further comprising steps for:

having an operator switch to a different launch adapter; and

repeating said comparing step until said performance parameter meets or exceeds said predefined value.

16. An optical transceiver comprising an optical receiver configured to convert a received optical signal on at least one optical channel into a corresponding electrical signal, the transceiver further comprising electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) circuitry configured to receive the corresponding electrical signals, a method for providing diagnostics information to a host system, the method comprising the steps of:

performing electronic dispersion compensation on the corresponding electrical signal received from the optical receiver;

generating diagnostics information concerning the electronic dispersion compensation;

providing said diagnostics information to the host;

wherein said diagnostics information includes at least one of the following:

i) an indication that a state of said adaptive EDC circuitry is closer than a predetermined measure from a limit of its capability to achieve a desired level of receiver performance;

ii) a measure of how close a state of said adaptive EDC circuitry is to a known limit of its capability;

iii) an indication that said adaptive EDC circuitry is unable to achieve a desired level of receiver performance;

iv) a digital representation of a metric of a quality of said optical channel;

v) a digital representation of an impulse response of said optical channel;

vi) a digital representation of a frequency response of said optical channel;

vii) information on a time variation of a quality of the optical channel;

viii) a measure of a worst state of said optical channel over a period of time;

ix) a maximum usable data rate possible on said optical channel;

x) link performance data for the optical channel;

xi) information derived from a current tap weight value in an adaptive equalizer; and

xii) information derived from a measure of a quality of an equalized received signal; and

further comprising the step of decreasing said data rate until said maximum usable data rate is determined.

17. method of claim 16 , wherein said data rate is decreased by selecting from a set of rates which differ from each other by factors of two.