Optical networking market in rude health

Quarterly market revenues, global optical networking (1Q 2011). Source: Ovum

Despite recent falls in optical equipment makers’ stock, the optical networking market remains in good health with analysts predicting 6-7% growth in 2011.

For Andrew Schmitt, directing analyst for optical at Infonetics Research, unfulfilled expectations are nothing new. Optical networking is a market of single-digit yearly growth yet in the last year certain market segments have grown above average: spending on ROADM-based wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical network equipment, for example, has grown 20% since the first quarter of 2010.

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LTE-Advanced - a mind map

 A mind map of the emerging 3GPP LTE Release 10 standard, also known as LTE-Advanced. For a pdf, click here 

R&D: At home or abroad?

ECI Telecom chose to set up its latest R&D site in Israel. Gazettabyte met with Chaim Urbach, ECI’s head of global R&D operations, to discuss why it decided to locate its latest site in Israel, and how the company can compete with the leading telecom players that have considerably larger R&D teams and budgets.

Omer Industrial Park in the Negev, Israel; the location of ECI Telecom's latest R&D centre.

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Fibre-to-the-FPGA

Briefing: Optical Interconnect

Part 1: FPGAs

Programmable logic chip vendor Altera is developing FPGAs with optical interfaces. But is there a need for such technology and how difficult will it be to develop? 

FPGAs with optical interfaces promise to simplify high-speed interfacing between and within telecom and datacom systems. Such fibre-based FPGAs, once available, could also trigger novel system architectures. But not all FPGA vendors believe optical-enabled FPGAs’ time has come, arguing that cost and reliability hurdles must be overcome for system vendors to embrace the technology 

“One of the advantages of using optics is that you haven’t got to throw your backplanes away as [interface] speeds increase.”

Craig Davis, Altera

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Terabit Consortium embraces OFDM

A project to develop optical networks using terabit light paths has been announced by a consortium of Israeli companies and universities. The Tera Santa Consortium will spend 3-5 years developing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based terabit optical networking equipment.

“This project is very challenging and very important”

Shai Stein, Tera Santa Consortium

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Chinese optical component vendors set for change

China’s optical component firms must adapt if they are to match their Western counterparts in market reach, company ambition and technology portfolios. These are the findings of a report - China: The New Land of Opportunity - on the local optical component (OC) industry by market research firm, LightCounting.

“If [Chinese optical component] companies get $100m from an IPO, they have the resources to really do things”

Vladimir Kozlov, LightCounting

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Optical engines bring Terabit bandwidth on a card

Avago Technologies is now delivering to customers its 120 Gigabit-per-second optical engine devices. 

Such a parallel optics design offer several advantages when used on a motherboard. It offer greater flexibility when cooling since traditional optics are normally in pluggable slots at the card edge, furthest away from the fans. Such optical engines also simplify high-speed signal routing and electromagnetic interference issues since fibre is used rather than copper traces.

Figure 1: Fourteen 120Gbps MiniPods on a board. Source: Avago Technologies

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