Huawei boosts its optical roadmap with CIP acquisition

Huawei has acquired UK photonic integration specialist, CIP Technologies, from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) for an undisclosed fee. The acquisition gives the Chinese system vendor a wealth of optical component expertise and access to advanced European Union R&D projects.

"By acquiring CIP and integrating the company’s R&D team into Huawei’s own research team, Huawei’s optic R&D capabilities can be significantly enhanced," says Peter Wharton, CEO at the Centre for Integrated Photonics (CIP). CIP Technologies is the trading name of the Centre for Integrated Photonics. 

 Huawei now has six European R&D centres with the acquisition of CIP.

Click to read more ...

Optical components: The six billion dollar industry

Chart Watch: Ovum Components

The service provider industry, including wireless and wireline players, is up 6% year-on-year (2Q10 to 1Q11) to reach US $1.82 trillion, according to Ovum. The equipment market, mainly telecom vendors but also the likes of Brocade, has also shown strong growth - up 15% - to reach revenues of over $41.4 billion. But the most striking growth has occurred in the optical components market, up 28%, to achieve revenues of over $6 billion, says the market research firm.

Source: Ovum

Click to read more ...

EPON becomes long reach

A controller chip that extends the reach and subscriber count of an Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) is now available from Teknovus. The device, dubbed the TK3401, boosts EPON’s reach to 100km while the subscriber count is increased from 64 to a maximum of 256.

“Rural [PON deployment] is a tough proposition”

Barry Gray

Click to read more ...

Photonic integration: Bent on disruption

gazettabyte feature

“This is a general rule: what starts as a series of parts loosely strung together, if used heavily enough, congeals into a self-contained unit.”   

W. Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology

Infinera's Dave Welch: PICs are fibre-optic's current disruption

Dave Welch likes to draw a parallel with digital photography when discussing the use of photonic integration for optical networking. “The CMOS photodiode array – a photonic integrated circuit - changed the entire supply chain of photography,” says Welch, the chief strategy officer at Infinera.

Click to read more ...

Next-Gen PON: An interview with BT

An interview with Peter Bell, Access Platform Director, BT Innovate & Design on next generation passive optical networks (PONs). These include 10 Gigabit Ethernet PON (EPON) and Gigabit PON (GPON) and wavelength division multiplexing PON (WDM-PON).

Peter Bell, Access Platform Director, BT Innovate & Design

Q: The status of 10 Gigabit PON – 10G EPON and 10G GPON (XG-PON): Applications, where it will be likely be used, and why is it needed?

PB: IEEE 10G EPON: BT not directly involved but we have been tracking it and believe the standard is close to completion  (gazettabyte: The standard was ratified in September 2009.)

Click to read more ...

BroadLight awarded a dynamic bandwidth allocation patent

Event:

Passive optical networking (PON) chip company, Broadlight, has been awarded a patent by the US Patent Office entitled: ‘Method and grant scheduler for cyclically allocating time slots to optical network units’. 

Click to read more ...

OneChip solution for Fibre-To-The-Home

Jim Hjartarson, CEO of OneChip PhotonicsAn interview with Jim Hjartarson, CEO of OneChip Photonics

Q. In March 2009, OneChip raised $19.5m. How difficult is it nowadays for an optical component firm to receive venture capital funding?

A. Clearly, the venture capital community, given the current macroeconomic environment, is being selective about the new investments it makes in the technology market in general, and photonics in particular.

Click to read more ...