Jan 22 2008
JDSU today announced that it has created the world's smallest widely tunable transmitter optical subassembly (TOSA) for the dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) transceiver market. The new TOSA represents a dramatic reduction in size and cost compared to previous discrete solutions for tunable transmitters.
The new TOSA brings full band tunability, or the ability for service providers to change to any wavelength on demand, to pluggable small form factor (XFP) transceivers that previously only supported one to two wavelengths.
In addition, the new tunable TOSA will enable service providers to use pluggable small form factor products to support 50GHz channel spacing in metro area networks, as traffic continues to grow in this area due to increased use of voice, video and data applications among consumers. According to a recent report by analyst firm IDC, fastest growth in optical networking is expected in the metro space over the next three years.
The TOSA houses JDSU's Integrated Laser Mach Zehnder (ILMZ) chip that was announced in September 2007. The ILMZ is a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) that combines a tunable laser and optical modulator on a tiny chip for smaller, higher performance tunable solutions. JDSU produces the ILMZ using a semiconductor style of manufacturing that allows this functionally integrated optical solution to be produced in high volumes more quickly and efficiently, resulting in lower costs.
"JDSU's new TOSA is the first of its kind and an exciting step forward for the transceiver industry," said Alex Schoenfelder, vice president and general manager of Integrated Photonics at JDSU. "Our ability to leverage the expertise of JDSU's in-house datacom and telecom teams provided a competitive advantage when it came to packing the most innovation possible into a dramatically smaller assembly."
TOSAs reside within optical transceivers - the key interface to optical networks that convert electrical data to optical signals and back again as they travel through DWDM networks.
JDSU will offer transceiver products leveraging the new TOSA package to the market later this year.