12 April 2011

Tera Santa Consortium formed to develop first Terabit OFDM network

Seven companies and five universities in Israel have formed the Tera Santa Consortium, whose goal is to develop the world's first Terabit orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based optical network.

With financial support from the Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade & Labor’s Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) through its MAGNET program, the founding consortium members include communications system maker ECI Telecom, the Israeli subsidiary of fiber-optic communications component and subsystem maker Finisar Corp of Sunnyvale, CA, USA, network switch provider Orckit-Corrigent of Tel-Aviv, Elisra-Elbit (which provides information warfare solutions based on real-time coherent signal processing), fabless semiconductor firm MultiPhy (which provides digital-signal-processing-based CMOS ICs for high-speed communications), Optiway (which provides optical multi-service solutions for in-buildings wireless communications), optoelectronic module maker Civcom of Petach Tikva, the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Ben-Gurion University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University, and Tel-Aviv University.

Fueled by ever-growing demand for bandwidth, a low-cost, compact and high-performance Terabit transponder solution will answer this market need with optimized bandwidth utilization and increased capacity for multi-service applications, says the consortium.

The focus of its activity is on the development of OFDM-based optical transmission technology and to research, develop and prototype a Terabit optical networking platform. This technology will be used to develop techniques to handle coherent optical links and will explore the operational and performance impact that coherent technology's new degrees of freedom will have on optical networking. The research should yield the building blocks for commercial Terabit optical networks for metro and long-haul market segments.

Research topics will include:

• high-speed design using high-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellations;
• overcoming optical impairments over long distances;
• maximizing system spectral efficiency;
• novel digital signal processing (DSP) architectures and algorithmic design;
• cost-effective and compact analog and optical components design; and
• design of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) as component-level platforms for the sub-system layer.

The consortium has already initiated activities and will continue for the next 3–5 years. It will work closely with and contribute to the international industry standard organizations involved with this effort, such as the IEEE, ITU and OIF.

“By applying coherent technology, we enable a new level of cognitive intelligence in the optical network — from digital and optical components, through transmission sub-systems, and all the way to a fully functioning network,” says consortium chairman Shai Stein (ECI Telecom’s chief technology officer). Cognitive coherent systems are intelligent systems that include unique DSP-based phase modulation techniques, allowing usage of inherent monitoring and self-rate adaptation capabilities as part of the system design and construction. “By combining the expertise of both industry and academia, the Tera Santa Consortium brings the ideal blend of skills and cross-functionality for a holistic approach,” Stein reckons.

“We have created a consortium structure in which we amplify and leverage the cooperative efforts of major companies and an ensemble of top researchers in our field, supported by generous government funding,” says Technion’s professor Moshe Nazarathy (co-founder of Harmonic Inc). “This transcends what any single company alone may accomplish,” he believes. “It also promotes an unprecedented degree of inter-academia-industry cooperation... we have come up with an out-of-the-box concrete approach towards realizing our vision for a Terabit system.”

Tags: OFDM network Finisar

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