8 December 2011

GigOptix ships 14G parallel VCSEL drivers and receiver amplifier arrays for AOCs

GigOptix Inc of San Jose, CA, USA (which supplies semiconductor and optical components including modulator and laser drivers and transimpedance amplifier ICs based on III-V materials) has started high-volume production and shipment to tier-1 customers of its parallel vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) drivers and receiver amplifier arrays for short-reach 14Gb/s serial optical interconnects.

GigOptix is now in full production with its 4- and 12-channel 14Gb/s link chip-set solutions for next-generation Infiniband Fast Data Rate (FDR) active optical cables (AOCs) operating up to 168Gb/s as well as 40G and 100G Ethernet transceivers. The easy-to-use, compact designs address the datacom, avionics and consumer markets.

GigOptix’s chip-set consists of a 4-channel HXT5104 VCSEL driver and HXR5104 receiver amplifier chip-set and a 12-channel HXT5112 VCSEL driver and HXR5112 receiver amplifier chip-set. These chip-sets are designed to enable ultra-low power consumption of less than 450mW for a 40G link over 100m as well as to minimize the components required to implement a transceiver, resulting in lower costs. The HXT/R5 family incorporates programmable equalization and pre-emphasis circuitry to facilitate various trace lengths, in addition to providing full programmable control via fully integrated analog-to-digital convertors (ADC) and digital-to-analog convertors (DAC) through an industry-standard 2-wire interface.

“This year has brought exciting progress of our parallel optics line,” says Dr Raluca Dinu, general manager & VP of the Optics Product Line at GigOptix. “After successful design wins into major tier-1 customers, we have finally gone into full production with the HXT/R51 series chipset. The requirements from our customers for reliable, high-performance, low-power and cost-effective solutions have been fulfilled by our unique chip-set solution that addresses current and future datacom short reach needs,” he claims.

Market research firm Lightcounting forecasts that AOC volume shipment of 250,000 units in 2012 and 400,000 units in 2014.

The production HXT/R51 series chip-set is available for evaluation with VCSEL and photodiodes on an evaluation board.

Tags: GigOptix VCSELs AOCs

Visit: www.gigoptix.com