MULTI-LENGTH LOOK-UP TABLE SPHERICAL CONSTELLATION SHAPING

Consistent with the present disclosure, an encoder circuit is provided at a transmit side of an optical fiber link that maps an input sequence of bits of fixed length k to a sequence of symbols of a codeword of length n, such that the symbols of the codeword define a predetermined transmission probability distribution. In one example, each subgroup of bits of the k input bit sequence is provided to a respective look-up table, whereby the sub-group of bits constitutes an address of a particular memory location in the corresponding look-up table. Based on the address, the contents at the particular memory location addressed by each subgroup of bits are output as a corresponding portion of a codeword. Each such codeword portion is provided to a further memory or buffer, such that the entire codeword is assembled in the buffer and output to forward error correction (FEC) circuitry. In a further example, the contents of each memory location of each look-up table is determined based on a sphere constellation shaping.