9 March 2011

Opnext demos tunable TOSA delivering wavelength stability

At this week’s Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition and the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC 2011) in Los Angeles (8–10 March), optical module and component maker Opnext Inc of Fremont, CA, USA is demonstrating its integrated tunable TOSA (transmission optical sub-assembly), highlighting automatic wavelength tuning designed to deliver stable wavelength control.

The tunable TOSA has been designed in-house specifically to help to reduce wavelength inventories and address wavelength needs and time-to-market requirements, says Tadayuki Kanno, president of Opnext’s module business unit.

Developed in collaboration with Hitachi’s Central Research Laboratory (CRL), the tunable TOSA is a hybrid design that combines the tunable laser and indium phosphide Mach–Zehnder (InP-MZ) chips to offer optical shutter functionality. It delivers system performance to address mode-hopping for optimized wavelength stability in a variety of DWDM applications, says Opnext. In addition, the design can flexibly support negative chirp or zero-chirp dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) applications to replace DWDM-XFP or 300-pin tunable transponders.

“Network equipment manufacturers are rapidly deploying tunable XFPs over 300-pin transponders because they are smaller and more cost effective,” says market research firm Ovum’s VP & practice leader Daryl Inniss. “We project tunable XFPs to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of over 50% from 2010 through 2013; they represent one of the fastest-growing market segments in the optical component space,” he adds.

Working samples of the tunable XFP will be available in June, with mass production planned for late fall.

Tags: Opnext Tunable TOSA

Visit: www.opnext.com

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