PMC-Sierra delivers silicon for 10 Gigabit EPON

PMC-Sierra has announced the availability of symmetric 10 Gigabit EPON chips. The devices complete the company's 10 Gigabit PON portfolio which also includes XGPON designs.

The 10G-EPON devices comprise two PAS9000 optical networking unit (ONU) and four PAS8000 optical line terminal (OLT) chips that support asymmetrical and symmetrical 10G-EPON: 10Gbps downstream (to the user) and 1Gbps upstream, and 10Gbps downstream and upstream, respectively. PMC-Sierra claims it is the first to market with a dual-mode 10G-EPON ONU device.

The PAS9000 optical network unit chip architecture. There are two devices in the family. One, the PAS9401, also supports 10G-EPON symmetric mode. Source: PMC-Sierra.

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The post-100 Gigabit era

Feature: Beyond 100G - Part 4

The latest coherent ASICs from Ciena and Alcatel-Lucent coupled with announcements from Cisco and Huawei highlight where the industry is heading with regard high-speed optical transport. But the announcements also raise questions too. 

Source: Gazettabyte

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Latest coherent ASICs set the bar for the optical industry

Feature: Beyond 100G - Part 3

Alcatel-Lucent has detailed its next-generation coherent ASIC that supports multiple modulation schemes and allow signals to scale to 400 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps). 

The announcement follows Ciena's WaveLogic 3 coherent chipset that also trades capacity and reach by changing the modulation scheme.

"They [Ciena and Alcatel-Lucent] have set the bar for the rest of the industry," says Ron Kline, principal analyst for Ovum’s network infrastructure group.

 "We will employ [the PSE] for all new solutions on 100 Gigabit"

Kevin Drury, Alcatel-Lucent

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Cisco Systems' 100 Gigabit spans metro to ultra long-haul

Cisco Systems has demonstrated 100 Gigabit transmission over a 3,000km span. The coherent-based system uses a single carrier in a 50GHz channel to transmit at 100 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps). According to Cisco, no Raman amplification or signal regeneration is needed to achieve the 3,000km reach.

Feature: Beyond 100G - Part 2

"The days of a single modulation scheme on a part are probably going to come to an end in the next two to three years"

Greg Nehib, Cisco 

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Altera optical FPGA in 100 Gigabit Ethernet traffic demo

Altera is demonstrating its optical FPGA at OFC/NFOEC, being held in Los Angeles this week. The FPGA, coupled to parallel optical interfaces, is being used to send and receive 100 Gigabit Ethernet packets of various sizes. 

The technology demonstrator comprises an Altera Stratix IV FPGA with 28, 11.3Gbps electrical transceivers coupled to two Avago Technologies' MicroPod optical modules. 

"FPGAs are now being used for full system level solutions"

Kevin Cackovic, Altera

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Ciena: Changing bandwidth on the fly

Ciena has announced its latest coherent chipset that will be the foundation for its future optical transmission offerings. The chipset, dubbed WaveLogic 3, will extend the performance of its 100 Gigabit links while introducing transmission flexibility that will trade capacity with reach.

Feature: Beyond 100 Gigabit - Part 1

"We are going to be deployed, [with WaveLogic 3] running live traffic in many customers’ networks by the end of the year"

Michael Adams, Ciena

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Challenges, progress & uncertainties facing the optical component industry

In recent years the industry has moved from direct detection to coherent transmission and has alighted on a flexible ROADM architecture. The result is a new level in optical networking sophistication. OFC/NFOEC 2012 will showcase the progress in these and other areas of industry consensus as well as shining a spotlight on issues less clear.

Optical component players may be forgiven for the odd envious glance towards the semiconductor industry and its well-defined industry dynamics. 

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