Product category:
Lasers
News Release from: Bookham | Subject: LMC10NEH
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 03 March 2004
Modulator and laser come together to
save space
The LMC10NEH is an integrated 10Gbit/s InP MZ (Mach-Zehnder) modulator packaged with a high power CW laser.
The LMC10NEH is an integrated 10Gbit/s InP MZ (Mach-Zehnder) modulator packaged with a high power CW laser The indium-phosphide-based device allows 10Gbit/s transmissions to be sent over 100km without dispersion compensation
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 28 Feb 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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Modulator tunes lasers up to 40Gbit/s
Reduced size InP MZ platform will allow Bookham to offer 40Gbit/s products in smaller footprints compared with existing 40Gbit/s offerings employing larger optics.
Although this functionality has been available in a larger device for several years, Bookham has now shrunk the unit size by 60%.
It now measures just 30 x 12.7 x 8.1mm.
The LMC10NEH has just completed full Telcordia Qualification and has been shipping in volume from its production line, which has a record of large-scale MZ manufacture.
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The laser modulator is part of a large family of products called Compact MZ.
Adam Price, Bookham's Product Line Manager for the InP MZ portfolio, commented: "The development is taking what we already offer but making it much smaller.
In this industry, people care about the size of the components.
Density really does add value".
"The nearest competition to the Compact MZ in terms of size would be an EA (electro absorption) modulator but that offers significantly lower performance in terms of reach, optical power and extinction ratio.
And the competition in terms of performance would be a LiNbO3 modulator, which can transmit distance but those solutions are typically much larger especially when coupled to a CW laser".
A typical directly modulated 14-pin laser has seven pins on each side but the Compact MZ has its pins located only on one side to increase potential density of devices on a board and facilitate attachment to a heatsink.
"We call this design a half-wing butterfly", says Price.
"Overall we have reduced the length of the optical train and this size reduction is the result of a novel copackaging technique, resulting in a package no bigger than a typical directly modulated laser".
Key target applications for the Compact MZ are within high performance regional metro systems.
A number of Tier 1 system manufacturers are already buying volume quantities of the LMC10NEH.
"The regional metro marketplace had for some time been based on 2.5Gbit/s traffic but what network manufacturers are now doing is increasing capacity by overlaying 10Gbit/s transmissions on these links that are typically up to 120km long.
"With the trends we are seeing in the market regarding shifts towards pluggable smaller footprint optics such as XFP, the company believes that InP MZ development could be a key enabling technology in the future to smaller high performance optics", says Price.
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