Verizon tips silicon photonics as a key systems enabler
Thursday, September 3, 2015 at 8:09AM Verizon's director of optical transport network architecture and design, Glenn Wellbrock, shares the operator’s thoughts regarding silicon photonics.
Part 3: An operator view
Glenn Wellbrock is upbeat about silicon photonics’ prospects. Challenges remain, he says, but the industry is making progress. “Fundamentally, we believe silicon photonics is a real enabler,” he says. “It is the only way to get to the densities that we want.”
Glenn Wellbrock
Wellbrock adds that indium phosphide-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs) can also achieve such densities.
But there are many potential silicon photonics suppliers because of its relatively low barrier to entry, unlike indium phosphide. "To date, Infinera has been the only real [indium phosphide] PIC company and they build only for their own platform,” says Wellbrock.
