Kaiam Corp. has announced general availability of the XQX5000-series of QSFP28 100G-CWDM4 transceivers based on its LightScale2 platform. By eliminating hermetic "gold boxes" and flex circuits, Kaiam says the LightScale2 platform minimizes parts and manufacturing costs, while providing improved electrical and thermal performance.
The company unveiled the LightScale2 platform at ECOC 2016 (see "Kaiam launches LightScale2 transceiver platform at ECOC"). Kaiam says it sold its Newton Aycliffe fabrication facility to II-VI to generate the necessary expansion capital for the build-out of LightScale2 manufacturing capacity. According to Kaiam, volume production of the LightScale 2 out of its Livingston, UK, facility is meeting the demand of multiple customers.
"The LightScale2 production ramp has gone very smoothly," said Russell Childs, Kaiam Europe Ltd. general manager. "Our UK factory has manufactured traditional hermetic TOSAs and ROSAs in high volumes for years. The LightScale2 platform is far simpler to manufacture in terms of assembly steps, capital equipment, and labor. This has allowed us to ramp to high volumes with high yields much more quickly than was possible with more complex legacy products."
Earlier this year, Kaiam Corp. and Corning Inc. teamed up to demonstrate an optical engine and single-mode fiber interface connector that could be co-packaged with a 12.8-Tbps switch chip (see "Kaiam and Corning team to demo optics/switch chip co-packaging"). Through partnerships and foundry services, Kaiam says it will continue InP photonic integrated circuits (PICs) development for future transceiver products.
"Our micromechanical alignment technology allows multimode packaging techniques to be used in a single mode application," said Bardia Pezeshki, Kaiam CEO. "The Lightscale2 platform is optimized to deliver maximum value and performance in the data center environment at dramatically lower costs than traditionally aligned hybrid approaches."
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