To the best of our knowledge, for the first time, we propose adaptive moment estimation (Adam) algorithm based on batch gradient descent (BGD) to design a time-domain equalizer (TDE) for PAM-based optical interconnects. Adam algorithm has been widely applied in the fields of artificial intelligence. For TDE, BGD-based Adam algorithm can obtain globally optimal tap coefficients without being trapped in locally optimal tap coefficients. Therefore, fast and stable convergence can be achieved by BGD-based Adam algorithm with low mean square error. Meanwhile, BGD-based Adam algorithm is implemented by parallel processing, which is more efficient than conventional serial algorithms, such as least mean square and recursive least square algorithms. The experimental results demonstrate that BGD-based Adam feed-forward equalizer works well in 120-Gbit/s PAM8 optical interconnects. In conclusion, BGD-based Adam algorithm shows great potential for converging the tap coefficients of TDE in future optical interconnects.
I. INTRODUCTIONO WING to the emergence of cloud computing and a variety of web applications, large-scale data centers nowadays are resorting to optical interconnects to meet the explosive increase of network traffic [1]. To achieve higher capacity, eightlevel pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM8) is a potential for future optical interconnects although it is sensitive to inter-symbol interference (ISI) and noise [2], [3]. In general, time-domain equalizer (TDE) can be employed to compensate ISI for PAM8 system. Recursive least squares (RLS) and least mean squares (LMS) algorithms are two common adaptive algorithms to converge the tap coefficients for TDE. However, with the increase of data rate and modulation level, TDE using RLS algorithm has high computational complexity and TDE using LMS algorithm requires large amount of training samples, which may be not well-suited for future optical interconnects [4].In recent years, machine learning (ML) algorithms have been widely applied in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) [5]. Since ML algorithms require large scale training data sets, many efficient adaptive algorithms have been proposed for fast and stable convergence to minimize the error function of ML algorithms [6]- [8]. Since its believed that more data beats better algorithm in AI fields [9], AI scientists often use the distinguished adaptive moment estimation (Adam) algorithm for stochastic optimization without reducing the scale of training set. Generally, there is a trade-off between the accuracy and the number of training samples in the training process [10]. Its very possible to optimize the TDE with traditional structure by using these adaptive algorithms. However, different from ML, in real communication systems, we are supposed to use as few training samples and low computational complexity as possible to get the optimal tap coefficients.In this paper, inspired by advances of AI, we first propose batch gradient descent (BGD)-based Adam algorithm to achieve fast and stable convergence of tap coef...