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Technology Stocks : Vitesse Semiconductor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tech101 who wrote (2062)	12/7/1998 3:07:00 AM
From: tech101	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4710

The recent rally of VTSS has been long, long due. Sun Microsystem claimed long time ago, THE NETWORK IS COMPUTER. Today, this should be restated as THE NETWORK IS THE CHIPS because semiconductor chipsets are the real building blocks for all the network and communications devices, which are, in turn, the foundation of Internet. According to the recent Business Week, when Internet traffic began to boom and the television business decided to go digital, and the convergence of voice, video, and data are pushing the demand for bandwidth to a projected capacity growth of 4,600% by 2002. Fortunately, the fiber-optic technology and WDM are pumping up the available capacity to levels that could revolutionize telecommunications. In 1995, WDM made its debut as a rainbow of just eight colors. Today, commercial WDM systems with 80 channels are available, and each channel can offer a bandwidth of 2.5 gigabit per second. The most advanced DWDM device in labs already reaches 100 channel with 10 gigabits (10 billion bits) per second each. That's more than enough to accommodate all of North America's telecom needs. . Furthermore, scientists envisions lasers pulsing at 40 gigabits a second--and optical fibers crammed with hundreds, even thousands, of WDM beams. Ultimately, each wispy fiber may transmit close to an incredible 200 terabits per second. That's enough to deliver the entire contents of the Library of Congress every single second. The numbers grow more extraordinary when you consider that fiber-optic cables used as so-called trunk lines to link cities and span oceans hold as many as 432 fibers. So even with today's commercial WDM technology--40 beams, each pumping at 2.5 gigabits per second--fiber cables can carry tens to hundreds of terabits per second. So much additional capacity will be coming onstream and we will see a big drop in communications costs. The dynamics of ever-cheaper bandwidth will spur innovations that will far outstrip what the spread of PCs has brought. As cost comes down, it's going to constantly drive up demand by creating new opportunities. People are envisioning a day when every manufacturer and department store has a separate high-speed WDM channel that's continuously open to each supplier. Bandwidth might become so cheap that every PC and home could also have its own open line to the Internet. So-called ''metropolitan'' WDM systems designed for short-haul links are now starting to show up in cities, and plug-in optical ''cards'' for local-area WDM networks are in the works at several telecom suppliers, including startups LightPath Technologies Inc. in Albuquerque and Eagle Optoelectronics Inc. in Boulder, Colo. It is not difficult to see when WDM technology is actually outrunning silicon's advances, VTSS with its GaAs chips (maybe silicon-germanium in future) is the real winner.