News

25 March 2009

 

JDSU claims first monolithically integrated and tunable optical transceiver 

At this week’s Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) and National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC) in San Diego, CA (24–26 March), JDSU of Milpitas, CA, USA is demonstrating what it claims is the industry’s first monolithically integrated and tunable optical transceiver.

The tunable XFP transceiver is 85% smaller than previous tunable products, allowing network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) to pack more transceiver interfaces onto a system’s line card or to deploy smaller systems within a network node. This in turn opens up valuable real estate for service providers in network central offices.

The much smaller size of the transceiver can also reduce power dissipation by 60%, reducing electrical and cooling costs within network central offices, says JDSU.

In addition, as increased consumer use of online video, voice and data applications continues to put demands on network capacity, NEMs and service providers are under pressure to add optical solutions that can manage increased bandwidth flexibly and cost effectively. Correspondingly, the tunable XFP transceiver will be the first pluggable solution that service providers can deploy without fully populating line cards, says JDSU, so technicians can easily provision more transceivers to the line card in the field only as needed in a ‘pay-as-you-grow’ fashion as network bandwidth demands increase, without affecting network performance.

“The tunable transceiver market had not yet transitioned to pluggable solutions because the technology breakthroughs hadn’t happened—until now,” says Alan Lowe, president of JDSU’s Communications and Commercial Optical Products business segment.

JDSU says that it achieved the dramatically smaller size of the new tunable XFP by leveraging its functional integration product approach at the chip and module level, meaning that size, cost, power efficiency and performance were all factored into its design. In particular, it contains key technology, as follows:

• JDSU’s photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology (announced in 2007), which was used to develop the Integrated Laser Mach-Zehnder (ILMZ) tunable transmitter—the engine of the tunable XFP (monolithically integrating a tunable laser, amplifier, and optical modulator on a single chip small enough to fit on a tip of a finger).

• The ILMZ was then housed in what JDSU claims is the world’s smallest tunable transmitter optical subassembly (TOSA) package (announced in 2008), which JDSU plans to make the available to the open market.

“It is quite an accomplishment that JDSU was able to create a tunable solution and get all of the functionality into an XFP form factor,” says Daryl Inniss, VP & practice leader of Communications Components at market research firm Ovum. “The new JDSU tunable XFP transceiver could help system vendors realize a wide range of benefits, including increased density, lower costs, and more flexible deployment options,” he adds.

JDSU began sampling the transceiver with customers in 2008. “We are engaged in 12 designs with nine customers and have received very positive feedback,” Lowe says. “Many of our top customers are already designing the JDSU tunable XFP transceiver into their next-generation systems,” he adds. JDSU expects to ship the tunable XFP transceiver in volume by this summer.

See related item:

JDSU sales decline accelerating

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Visit: www.jdsu.com