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UNITED STATES: Apogee Photonics and Vitesse Semiconductor recently announced a joint reference design that extends 10Gbps transceiver performance to an industrial temperature range.

The new reference design will allow customers to quickly and confidently deploy high-speed optical links in the most demanding environmental conditions, including the outside plant associated with PON backhaul applications, while maintaining exceptional XFP transceiver SONET eye mask margins of 20 percent average over case temperatures ranging from minus 40 degrees C to +85 degrees C.

Apogee Photonics is a pioneer in the development of advanced photonic ICs and high-speed lasers for next-generation optical transceivers. Vitesse is a provider of innovative IC designs for optical communications, and is leading the industry in the development of more robust performance for 10Gbps optical modules. The joint Vitesse-Apogee reference design offers transceiver manufacturers reduced product development costs and significantly higher scalability and throughput in manufacturing due to simplicity of calibration over the temperature range.

Since the initial deployment of 10Gbps optical modules, the industry demand for higher module performance over industrial temperature ranges is rapidly growing. At elevated temperatures, directly modulated laser (DML) technology has proven asymmetrical performance resulting in reduced eye mask margin and degradation in overall link budget even with increased signal amplitude. Module manufacturers now look to electroabsorption-modulated-laser (EML) technology to provide stable and symmetric performance on robust temperature insensitivity of EML bandwidth.

"The Vitesse XFP PRO chipset was designed and characterized to support the natural progression to industrial temperature range operation. By working closely with Apogee Photonics, we have been able to offer customers a solution that meets rising performance demands of extended temperature 10km modules," said Richard Interrante, manager of applications engineering for the Networks Products Division at Vitesse.

Aaron Bond, vice president of Marketing and Business Development at Apogee Photonics, noted: 'Customer demand for industrial temperature range products is growing and a logical next step in our product roadmap. With the new reference design, customers can now upgrade their modules to support industrial temperatures, without altering existing designs based on the Vitesse chipset and Apogee Photonics uncooled 1310nm EML.'