Startup says photonic solution provides greater bandwidth
(This is "wow" news if true and viable. I wonder what Gilder has to say about it?)
By Margaret Quan
EE Times
(11/03/98, 11:48 a.m. EDT)
NEW YORK — Silk Road Inc. (San Diego), a
startup, will demonstrate on Tuesday (Nov. 3) a
photonically derived solution that enables the
transmission of voice, video and data signals on a
single wavelength at the speed of light through fiber
optic cable.
In its technology demo, Silk Road will transmit 144
distinct TV programming signals from a video wall
with 144 monitors to a second video wall through a
strand of fiber optic cable at 93 gigabits per
second.
Silk Road's technology simultaneously carries
voice, video and data signals over long distances
on the backs of photons in a bidirectional laser
beam that does not have to be replicated or
amplified.
Company executives said their photonics solution
can be scaled from a network backbone down to a
local area network. Silk Road plans to introduce its
first transmitter and receiver products early next
year.
Silk Road (formerly SynComm Inc.) is promoting
its photonics-based technology as an alternative to
dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM),
a transmission technology that provides wide
bandwidth across networks.
Unlike WDM, which uses multiple wavelengths
that must be reconditioned to eliminate crosstalk,
Silk Road said its single-wavelength solution
presents no chance for crosstalk or signal
interruption.
The technology allows information to be added or
removed with a simple beam splitter, so
information is available to all nodes in a network at
any time and there is no need to disrupt a
transmission to add or drop data.
In Silk Road's signal-transmission scheme, light is
generated from a source and photons that escape
from a cavity form a laser beam. As the laser beam
shoots down an optical fiber, an external optical
modulator narrows the beam and enables
electronic signals to be embedded into the beam.
The embedded signals are tagged with proprietary
frequency ID tags. These tags, which remain linked
to the signals, travel down the fiber without
interfering with one another.
At the receiving end, a key for each tag is matched
up with the correct transmission channel to unlock
the data, voice or video to be received.
Silk Toad calls the technology refractive
synchronization communication, which refers to the
behavior of the electromagnetic wave inside a
crystal of the modulator.
Silk Road's technology is broadly described in a
U.S. patent, awarded on Oct. 6 to James R.
Palmer, the founder and chief scientist for Silk
Road, for a Stabilized Distributed Feedback
Semiconductor Laser. The initial patent was
deliberately obscure to protect the company's
intellectual property, executives said. Silk Road has
submitted 250 additional patent claims that further
detail the company's work.
Palmer has a distinguished career in optics. He
served as chief optical scientist on the Strategic
Defense Initiative project of the U.S. government,
held a professorship at Trinity College, and
received the Rudolph Kingslake Award in 1984
for his work in optics.
Asked why other companies haven't pursued
similar technology to obtain greater bandwidth,
Robert Freeman, vice president of operations for
Silk Road, said others have focused their money
and resources on WDM technology.
SilkRoad has met with Lucent, Ciena, Nortel and
Siemens, Freeman said. Those companies were
"dumbfounded" by the technology, he said.
eet.com |
