Release date
November, 2003
Standardization of the Q-factor Method
Q-factor Technologies and Applications
Executive overview
The measurement procedure for rapid
estimation of the bit error rate using the
Q-factor method was standardized by the
ITU-T in July, 2003. Above all, the mea-
surement results that can be obtained
with the different methods available for
determining the Q-factor must be compa-
rable. The Appendix to ITU-T O.201 (IEC
61280-2-8) describes the „decision level
shifting method“ with „dual decision
circuit“ as the reference method. This
method delivers the most reliable results
and works regardless of the transmitted
bit pattern.
A reminder: What is the Q-factor?
The Q-factor is defined as the electrical
signal to noise ratio of a digital trans-mis-
sion signal.
“1”
Decision
threshold
“0”
Sampling point
The following applies:
1 µ - µ0 1 µ1 - µ
BER = erfc + erfc
4 2 s0 4 2 s1
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The bit error rate of the signal can
be estimated from the noise that is
measured.
µ1 - µ0
Q = s -s
1 0
The bit error rate corresponds to the
cross-sectional area under the amplitude
histogram for zeros and ones, assuming
that zeros and ones occur with equal
frequency.
What are the limitations?
It should be noted that, in the case of
digitally regenerated sections, the results
obtained apply only to the regenerated
section whose receiver is under test.
Errors generated in upstream regenerated
sections may generate an error plateau
which may have to be taken into account
in the error performance evaluations
of the regenerator sections under test.
P(1/0)
µ1, s1
µ0, s0
P(0/1)
Contact Person
Roland Bach
Tel.: +49 7121 86-1166
Fax: +49 7121 86 2054
E-mail: roland.bach@acterna.com
These methods are applicable to the
determination of the error performance
in respect of amplitude-based impair-
ments.
Jitter may also affect the error perfor-
mance of a system, and its effect requires
other methods of determination.
If the error performance is dominated by
jitter impairments, the amplitude-based
methods described here will lead to BER
values which are lower than the actual
value.
An accurate estimation of a system’s
transmission performance, or Q-fac-
tor, must take into consideration the
effects of all sources of performance
degradation, both fundamental and
those due to real-world imperfections.
Two important sources are amplified
spontaneous emission (ASE) noise and
intersymbol interference (ISI). Additive
noise originates primarily from ASE of
optical amplifiers. ISI arises from many
effects, such as chromatic dispersion,
fiber non-linearities, multi-path interfer-
ence, polarization mode dispersion and
use of electronics with finite bandwidth.
There may be other effects as well; for
example, a poor impedance match can
cause impairments such as long fall times
or ringing on a waveform.
Summary of methods used
Asynchronous sampling (voltage
histogram, figure 2)
All the amplitude values of the eye dia-
gram (including the amplitude values
of the transient regions) are sampled
asynchronously resulting in a histogram
representing the PDF of the complete
signal including the transient regions.
The main objective in acquiring an evalu-
ation of the performance is to determine
the PDF of the optimum sampling phase.
The contribution of the transient regions
to the overall PDF is to “hide” the PDF of
the sampling phase. The transient region
samples fill up the center between the
two means. Two possible solutions for
correction are the “cut and flip” or the
“cut and delete” methods.
The idea behind this is that the histo-
gram’s edges are only influenced by
the noise distributions, and not by the
transient. In the first case, the edges
representing noise distributions are
flipped inside to get a more appropriate
model of the PDF. In the second case, the
center (which is affected by the transient
samples) is omitted leaving the edges for
evaluation.
The characteristics of the asynchronous
sampling method make it very difficult to
fit the Gaussian functions to the measure-
ment results which are necessary for the
BER calculation. The BER calculation for
the signal will not give high accuracy for
the optimum sampling phase as the PDF
j=0 j=p j = 2p
Amplitude
figure 2 Asynchronous sampling
2
needs to be prepared to provide a better distribution functions, although the
estimation. estimation of the correct standard devia-
tions and hence the bell curve is difficult
Synchronous sampling (digital sampling
to determine. The shape of the bell curve,
scope, figure 3)
however, contributes greatly to the BER
The main drawback of asynchronous estimation as the evaluation takes place
sampling is that the transient regions mostly at the tail of the bell curve.
affect the result. To overcome this
Although this method gives a higher
limitation and gain higher accuracy, syn-
degree of accuracy than the asynchro-
chronous sampling must be performed.
nous histogram method, it is still not very
Synchronous sampling needs clock
accurate and mostly shows lower Q-factor
recovery and is therefore more complex.
values (higher BER) than the more accu-
The sampling phase is locked to the
rate synchronous pseudo-BER methods
optimum phase and can therefore give a
which are described next.
more accurate result for the BER estima-
tion.
Synchronous sampling concentrates
more on the detection phase rather than
on the whole signal.
One disadvantage of this method is that
the digital sampling scopes used often
do not have the sampling rate needed for
Q-factor measurements.
A typical sampling rate would be 100,000
samples per second. Assuming a
10 Gbps signal (10,000,000,000 bits per
second) is received, only one bit out of
100,000 would be sampled.
An additional disadvantage is that due to
the low statistical probability of a sample
being affected during measurement
occurring at the tail of the Gaussian func-
tion, the samples tend to be concentrated
at the “0” and “1” levels.
This gives a good estimation around
the mean values of the two Gaussian
PDF PDF
Std. dev. s1 Std. dev. s1
“1” mean “1” mean
(µ1) (µ1)
“0” mean “0” mean
(µ0) (µ0)
j=0 j=p j = 2p
Std. dev. s0 Std. dev. s0
Amplitude
figure 3 Synchronous sampling histogram method
Synchronous sampling method (single
decision threshold method, figure 4)
Rather than taking the histogram to deter-
mine the shape of the PDF (and thus the
estimated BER), BER measurements at
different decision threshold levels can be
taken to extrapolate the estimated BER.
The BER measurement method described
in ITU-T standards can be time consum-
ing, given that the measurement time
depends on fulfilling the requirement for
a certain degree of statistical confidence.
By taking decision threshold levels which
are correlated to BERs of 10-4 to 10-8, the
measurement can be completed much
faster (table 1).
Assuming the distributions of the PDFs
are Gaussian, the BER of the optimum
threshold level can be evaluated, result-
ing in an estimated BER as opposed to an
actual measured value.
By using the pseudo-BER method, Once the BERs have been measured, an
the number of samples per second extrapolation can be made to determine
is the same as the bit rate. For exam- the optimum decision threshold level.
ple, a 10 Gbps signal results in Different threshold levels also allow bet-
10,000,000,000 samples per second, ter evaluation at the tail of the PDF, as the
which is a much higher rate than that of a area investigated is much closer to the
sampling scope. tail than it is with the histogram method.
The block diagram shows how the single This results in a better fitting of the Gauss-
decision threshold method works. A ian curve and in turn a higher confidence
known data pattern, which can be a and accuracy of the BER estimation at the
pseudo-random binary sequence (PRBS) optimum detection point. BER estimation
is sent on the transmitter side. The signal using this method may be completed in
is detected on the receiver side with vari- just under 1 minute.
able decision threshold levels.
A second path is required to provide the
known data pattern (PRBS) as a reference
signal. The detected signal and the refer-
ence signal are compared with each other
to identify the bit errors. The errors are
then counted over a certain time frame to
determine the BER. This process is repeat-
ed at different threshold levels.

BER 10-4 10-8 10-14 10-15 10-16 10-18 10-20

OC-48/ 0.004 ms 0.04 s 11 hours 6 days 46 days 13 years 1268 years
STM-16
OC-192/ 0.001 ms 0.01 s 3 hours 8 hours 12 days 3 years 317 years
STM-64
table 1 Time forone error to occur at different bit rates

PDF
Std. dev. s1
“1” mean
(µ1)

“0” mean
(µ0)
j=0 j=p j = 2p Std. dev. s0

Amplitude
sync
PRBS

PRBS Error count

figure4 Single decision threshold method

3
Synchronous sampling method (dual Each threshold level generates a data Signal interference method
decision threshold method, figure 5) point in the range of 10-4 to 10-8 to ensure In this method a discrete low frequency
The single decision threshold method is a short measurement time. Extrapolation signal is added instead of noise to
based on traditional BER testing using a using the measured BERs (light area in fig- decrease the quality (SNR) of the signal
known bit pattern (PRBS). This, of course, ure 5) allows for an estimation of the BER under test. Knowing the PDF of the inter-
has the drawback that the single decision for the optimum threshold level (Q-factor fering signal, the BER of the undistorted
threshold method can only be performed point in figure 5). The estimated BER can signal can be extrapolated.
in out-of-service mode. be expressed as a Q-factor.
The dual decision threshold method is Noise adding receiver sensitivity method
applied to overcome this disadvantage.
In this method, optical or electrical noise
The receiver has two signal paths, one
is added to the signal at the optical input.
set to the assumed optimum threshold
The power level of the receiver is reduced
(used as reference path or signal), the
until bit errors occur. This method has the
other operating with variable decision
advantage of testing directly the system
threshold levels . The two paths are com-
receiver of interest.
pared in order to count bit errors, which
means that the known data pattern at the
receiver side is no longer needed.
Being independent of both bit rate and
specific test pattern, this method clearly
shows its benefits as an in-service perfor-
mance measurement.
The results of the Q-factor measurement
can be graphically displayed in a diagram
with the x-axis representing the threshold
level and the y-axis representing the BER
(error count referred to the reference
threshold level and estimated BER).

PDF
Std. dev. s1
“1” mean
(µ1)

“0” mean
(µ0)
j=0 j=p j = 2p Std. dev. s0

Amplitude

Error count

figure 5 Dual decision threshold method

4
Error limits, intrinsic noise compensation A reference test setup is prescribed in The following parameters play a signifi-
Because the intrinsic noise of the mea- ITU-T O.201 to ensure that the measure- cant part in this transformation:
surement receiver (Q-factor meter) is ment results are in agreement. OSNR: Optical signal to noise ratio mea-
also included in the result (squared sum- The setup simulates the interference sured with bandwidth Bo
mation of noise components in the test effects of Gaussian noise and crosstalk ER: Extinction ratio of the optical
signal before and after the measurement on the digital communications signal. The signal
receiver), a method of intrinsic noise error tolerances of ITU-T O.201 must not Q: Q-factor of the electrical signal
compensation is also described. In this, be exceeded in either case. (electrical SNR)
the intrinsic noise of each individual Be: Electrical bandwidth of the re-
measurement receiver is determined The relationship between OSNR and bit ceiver
in a calibration step and is stored in the errors or OSNR and Q Bo: Optical bandwidth for the charac-
instrument so that it can be subtracted For the first time, Acterna development terization of OSNR
when measurements are made. engineers have been able to describe Bch: Optical bandwidth of the
The results are thus not falsified by the mathematically the comprehensive rela- dropped optical signal before
intrinsic noise of the Q-factor. tionship between OSNR and Q (BER). This O/E conversion
long sought-after formula provides an
Q = 7 (BER= 1e-12) is defined as the refer-
exact transformation from optical noise to
ence value.
electrical noise (the electrical SNR being
The following relationship applies for defined as Q).
intrinsic noise compensation:
( ER + 1) é æB ö Be × (8 ER × Q 2 × Be + ( ER - 1) 2× (2 Bch - Be )) ù
k = (ER+1)/(ER-1) , OSNR = × êQ 2 × çç e ÷÷ × ( ER + 1) + Q × ú
( ER - 1) 2 êë è Bo ø 2 B02 úû
1 1 k2 1 1 k2
2
= 2- 2 2
= 2- 2
Qsig 1 Q 1 Qi1 , Qsig 0 Q0 Qi 0

ER = signal extinction ratio

The noise components for zeros and
ones are compensated separately, after
which the overall Q-factor of the signal is
calculated.
1 1 1
= +
Qsig Qsig 0 Qsig1

Signal source
DFB laser Sampling
l1 scope

Variable Variable Channel QFM

Modulator EDFA filter (Bch) (Be)
attenuator attenuator

50% 10%
Pattern
generator
Modulation DFB laser Variable OSA (B0)
source 10 MHz l2 attenuator
PRBS 23
or 11001100
pattern
Crosstalk source
(for crosstalk test only)

figure 6 Reference test setup

5
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