An insider's view on the merits of optical integration

One of the pleasures of attending the OFC show, held in Los Angeles last month, is the many conversations possible in one location. The downside is that too many are cut short due to the show's hectic schedule. One exception was a conversation with Valery Tolstikhin (pictured), held in a quiet room prior to the exhibition hall's opening.

Tolstikhin is president and CEO of Intengent, the Ottawa-based consultancy and custom design service provider, and an industry veteran of photonic integration. In 2005 he founded OneChip Photonics, a fabless maker of indium phosphide photonic integrated circuits for optical access. 

One important lesson he learned at OneChip was how the cost benefit of a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) can be eroded with a cheap optical sub-assembly made from discrete off-the-shelf components. When OneChip started, the selling price for GPON optics was around $100 a unit but this quickly came down to $6. "We needed sales in volumes and they never came close to meeting $6," says Tolstikhin.

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SDM and MIMO: An interview with Bell Labs

Bell Labs is claiming an industry first in demonstrating the recovery in real time of multiple signals sent over spatial-division multiplexed fibre. Gazettabyte spoke to two members of the research team to understand more.

Part 2: The capacity crunch and the role of SDM

The argument for spatial-division multiplexing (SDM) - the sending of optical signals down parallel fibre paths, whether multiple modes, cores or fibres - is the coming ‘capacity crunch’. The information-carrying capacity limit of fibre, for so long described as limitless, is being approached due to the continual yearly high growth in IP traffic. But if there is a looming capacity crunch, why are we not hearing about it from the world’s leading telcos? 

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Hybrid integration specialist Kaiam acquires Gemfire

Kaiam Corp. has secured US $16M in C-round funding and completed the acquisition of Gemfire.

"We have a micro-machine technology that allows us to use standard pick-and-place electronic assembly tools, and with our micro-machine, we achieve sub-micron alignment tolerances suitable for single-mode applications"

Byron Trop, Kaiam

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Alcatel-Lucent demos dual-carrier Terabit transmission

"Without [photonic] integration you are doubling up your expensive opto-electronic components which doesn't scale"

Peter Winzer, Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs

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NeoPhotonics' PIC transceiver tackles PON business case

Gazettabyte completes its summary of optical announcements at ECOC, held in Amsterdam. In the third and final part, NeoPhotonics’ GPON multiport transceiver is detailed.

Part 3: NeoPhotonics

“Anything that can be done to get high utilisation of your equipment, which represents your up-front investment, helps the business case"

Chris Pfistner, NeoPhotonics  

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60-second interview with .... Sterling Perrin

Heavy Reading has published a report Photonic Integration, Super Channels & the March to Terabit Networks. In this 60-second interview, Sterling Perrin, senior analyst at the market research company, talks about the report's findings and the technology's importance for telecom and datacom.

"PICs will be an important part of an ensemble cast, but will not have the starring role. Some may dismiss PICs for this reason, but that would be a mistake – we still need them."

Sterling Perrin, Heavy Reading

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OneChip Photonics targets the data centre with its PICs

OneChip Photonics is developing integrated optical components for the IEEE 40GBASE-LR4 and 100GBASE-LR4 interface standards.

The company believes its photonic integrated circuits (PICs) will more than halve the cost of the 40 and 100 Gigabit 10km-reach interfaces, enough for LR4 to cost-competitively address shorter reach applications in the data centre.

"I think we can cut the price [of LR4 modules] by half or better”

Andy Weirich, OneChip Photonics

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