Software simplifies fibre amplifier design

GainMaster is a highly sophisticated design and simulation package for erbium doped fibre amplifiers (EDFAs).

GainMaster is a highly sophisticated design and simulation package for erbium doped fibre amplifiers (EDFAs).

Continuing with its "total customer support" philosophy, Fibercore designed the new software to deliver time and cost savings to support the global drive for cost reduction in EDFA manufacture where labour costs continue to dominate the industry.

Dr Chris Emslie, Managing Director of Fibercore, commented: "The truth is that what remains of the market bears little resemblance to what we left behind at the beginning of 2001 - not only are EDFA manufacturers 'leaner and meaner' and fewer, but their products are different too".

"They are more sophisticated in their performance and more complex in their design".

"Within reason, anyone can fabricate an erbium doped fibre for use in a single channel booster amplifier as demonstrated by the number available on the market".

"However, today's flattened, multistage designs for DWDM require something very different - experience, product consistency, performance and advanced simulation capability".

"Having introduced erbium doped fibres to the commercial market in 1988, and with an order book for IsoGain and MetroGain erbium doped fibre products that currently run up to tens of kilometres per month, Fibercore has the first three bases covered".

"Our GainMaster software completes the picture".

Fibercore's programme to develop an EDFA simulation package has been five years in the making and GainMaster software enables customers to benefit from the kind of experience and "real life" user feedback that only a company with 22 years in the specialty fibre industry, 16 of them fabricating erbium doped fibre, can provide.

The GainMaster software was conceived to enable users to evaluate Fibercore's IsoGain and MetroGain products in their own EDFA designs, without forcing them to waste expensive and increasingly scarce engineering resources.

The versatility and accuracy of the package is such that its usefulness extends far beyond this original goal.

It not only assists Fibercore in the prequalification of fibres delivered to high-volume OEM customers and enables those same customers to design custom gain flattening filters (GFFs), but also performs cost-benefit analyses on all critical components, including isolators, pump WDMs, tap couplers etc.

Dr Emslie concluded: "The GainMaster solution is every bit as user friendly and accurate as some packages costing $10,000 or more per single-user licence, and even manages to offer some additional features, all of its own".

"That we are actually licensing the GainMaster software to purchasers of the IsoGain and MetroGain products for no additional costs just makes it all the more remarkable - and confirms Fibercore's total commitment to the 'TCS' philosophy".

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