Patent ID: 7236656

Claim:
An optical transport network having a transceiver, comprising: a monolithic transmitter photonic integrated circuit (TxPIC) InP-based chip comprising: an array of optical channels formed in the chip that are coupled as inputs to an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG); each of the optical channels including, in integrated form, a semiconductor laser source and an electro-optic modulator and providing a modulated channel signal; each of the laser sources having a different operational wavelength and together approximating a standardized wavelength grid; the AWG having a wavelength grid with a passband substantially matching the standardized wavelength grid of the laser sources and functioning as a multiplexer of modulated channel signals received at its as input and providing a multiplexed channel signal at its output for off-chip optical coupling to an optical link; a monolithic receiver photonic integrated circuit (RxPIC) InP-based chip comprising: an input to receive the multiplexed channel signal from the optical link and provide the same to an input of an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) integrated on the chip; the AWG having a wavelength grid with a passband substantially matching the standardized wavelength grid of the laser sources and functioning as a demultiplexer of the multiplexed channel signal received at its input; the AWG having a plurality of optical output channels to respectively receive a demultiplexed channel signal at a respective output; each of the AWG output channels having an integrated photodetector for detecting the demultiplexed channel signal and produce a corresponding electrical signal; and a forward error correction (FEC) encoder for each of the TxPIC channel semiconductor laser sources and a forward error correction (FEC) decoder for each of the RxPIC channel outputs.