Huawei's novel Petabit switch

The Chinese equipment maker showcased a prototype optical switch at this year's OFC/NFOEC that can scale to 10 Petabit. 

"Although the numbers [400,000 lasers] appear quite staggering, they point to a need for photonic integration"

Reg Wilcox, Huawei

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OFC/NFOEC 2012 industry reflections - Part 1

The recent OFC/NFOEC show, held in Los Angeles, had a strong vendor presence. Gazettabyte spoke with Infinera's Dave Welch, chief strategy officer and executive vice president, about his impressions of the show, capacity challenges facing the industry, and the importance of the company's photonic integrated circuit technology in light of recent competitor announcements.

OFC/NFOEC reflections: Part 1 

"I need as much fibre capacity as I can get, but I also need reach" 

Dave Welch, Infinera

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Dan Sadot on coherent's role in the metro and the data centre

Gazettabyte went to visit Professor Dan Sadot, academic, entrepreneur and founder of chip start-up MultiPhy, to discuss his involvement in start-ups, his research interests and why he believes coherent technology will not only play an important role in the metro but also the data centre.

"Moore's Law is probably the most dangerous enemy of optics"

Professor Dan Sadot 

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FSAN close to choosing the next generation of PON

Briefing: Next-gen PON

Part 1: NG-PON2

The next-generation passive optical network (PON) will mark a departure from existing PON technologies. Some operators want systems based on the emerging standard for deployment by 2015. 

“One of the goals in FSAN is to converge on one solution that can serve all the markets"

Derek Nesset, co-chair of FSAN's NGPON task group 

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Oclaro-Opnext merger will create second largest optical component company

Oclaro has announced its plan to merge with Opnext. The deal, valued at US $177M, will result in Opnext's shareholders owning 42% of the combined company. The merger of the fifth and sixth largest optical component players will create a company with annual revenues of $800M, second only to Finisar. The deal is expected to be completed in the next 3-6 months.

Source: Gazettabyte

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100 Gigabit direct detection gains wider backing

More vendors are coming to market with 100 Gigabit direct detection products for metro and private networks. 

The emergence of a second de-facto 100 Gigabit standard, a complement to 100 Gigabit coherent, gained credence with 4x28 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) direct detect announcements from Finisar and Oclaro and likely backing from system vendor, ECI Telecom.

 

"We believe that in some cases operators will prefer to go with this technology instead of coherent"

Shai Stein, CTO, ECI Telecom 

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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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