Potential Competition to DITC's Quasar:
Startup Claims First Multi-Port Amplifier (9/04/00)
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MUNICH -- Startup Southampton Photonics Inc. today unveiled a significant development in erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) here at the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC).
Southampton Photonics' new product, the GainNet M8, packs eight EDFAs into a single component. And that's just for starters, according to Anatoly Grudinin, the startup's technical director. "Eight channels is just a demonstration of our capabilities," he says. "We can go up to 32 channels."
The bottom line for telecom operators? Significantly lower costs and improved reliability, together with a potential three-fold increase in power.
The lower costs come from being able to configure the EDFAs in parallel, so a single GainNet M8 can do the work of eight conventional EDFAs. Although pricing hasn't been finalized, the eight-pack won't cost significantly more than a single EDFA, according to Curtis Wright, sales director. It will also take up less space than eight EDFAs.
The improved reliability comes from being able to couple all eight EDFAs to a common pool of pump lasers. If one laser conks out, the remaining ones take the strain. Sharing lasers also cuts costs even further.
The potential three-fold increase in power comes from being able to connect the EDFAs in series as well as in parallel. Hooking up a string of EDFAs in the same package can boost light signals by as much as one Watt while minimizing noise. That's three times more than conventional EDFAs, according to Southampton Photonics.
It's also possible to incorporate other devices between EDFAs, such as gain-flattening and dispersion-compensating filters, and reap the same benefits of low noise levels, the firm claims.
Southampton Photonics expects to start commercial shipments of its multiport EDFAs in first quarter of 2001.
lightreading.com
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Excerpt from DITC Quasar product announcement press release:
Mountain View, California, August 2, 2000 - Ditech Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: DITC) today announced its new Quasar product, an advanced optical amplifier that provides a key building block for next generation all-optical networks. Ditech's Quasar amplifier provides the vital wavelength stability required in next generation DWDM Networks. To deliver high-bandwidth on demand requires optical switches and add/drop multiplexers able to add and drop optical signals within a fraction of a second. However, as an optical channel is added or dropped from an amplifier, the signal power of the other optical channels will fluctuate. If the signal power fluctuates too severely, network connections can degrade or fail, potentially disrupting the communications of tens of thousands of users. Ditech's Quasar provides what the company believes is the most stable optical amplifier for next generation network applications, capable of restoring optical signal stability (called transient response time) within 50 millionths of a second. Quasar's industry leading transient response time enables optical channels to be dynamically added or dropped without affecting optical channel stability and network reliability.
The Quasar product is now available for shipment to network equipment manufacturers. The list price for Quasar is $15,590. Further information on the Quasar can be found at Ditech Communication's web site (http://www.ditechcom.com).
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