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There is a timely and growing demand for high capacity optical data transport solutions to provide connectivity inside data centres and between data centres located at different geographical locations. The requirements for reach are in the order of 2 km for intra-datacentre and up to 100 km for inter-datacentre connectivity. Moreover, the requirements for such connectivity solutions include also low cost, high data rate and desirable features such as energy efficiency and reduced interfacing cost. In this paper we review several approaches for intra and inter datacentre that use advanced modulation formats and multiplexing techniques to cope with the requirement of high capacity as well as techniques for reach extension.

A new type of Marchand balun is presented in this paper, which has the property of complex impedance transformation. To allow the Marchand balun to transform between arbitrary complex impedances, three reactances should be added to the circuit. A detailed analysis of the circuit gives the governing equations. To verify the theory, a design and electromagnetic simulation of a lumped element Marchand balun is made in a SiGe BiCMOS technology. The lumped element impementation is favorable because capacitors are placed where the additional reactances should be added. Thus it is possible to absorb a positive reactance by reducing a capacitor. At the design frequency of 10.5 GHz it matches 50Ω to 50 - j66Ω. It has an insertion loss of 5.1 dB, an input reflection of −20.8 dB, as well as phase and magnitude imbalance better than 0.2° and 0.12 dB, respectively.