An implementation in semi-custom or even full-custom ASIC offers sufficient
processing power even for an oversampling receiver with CD compensation. The
required development resources as well as access cost to ASCI foundrie s require a
much higher commitment, though. In Re f. [44], it has been reported that a full
intradyne receiver comprising CD compensation and polarization demultiplexing
should fit in an ASIC with 20 million gates, which can be considered a mid-size
ASCI design.
Besides the signal processor, the ADCs are components that have not been used
in conventional optical receivers, but in receivers using MLSE. For MLSE,
typically a resolution in the order of 3 bits is suffic ient [38]. For intradyne or
self-coherent receivers, ADCs with