Patent ID: 8068742

Claim:
An optical transmitter comprising: an n-lane digital data channel configured to provide n-lanes of digital data to provide a synchronized sequence of n-bit digital data signals, one n-bit digital data signal for each discrete time in the sequence digital data signals, wherein each n-bit digital data signal has at least eight possible digital values; an n-bit digital-to-analog converter configured to receive the sequence of n-bit digital data signals to thereby convert digital values of at least some of the n-bit digital data signals into corresponding analog data signals to thereby generate a sequence of analog data signals; and a Phase-Shift Keyed (PSK) Chirp Managed Laser (CML)-based transmitter that is configured to receive the sequence of analog data signals, and transmit an optical signal that represents a point on a PSK constellation plot that corresponds to each analog data signal in the sequence of analog signals.