11 July 2003 Petaluma CA Lightwave -- Teknovus, a provider of semiconductors for digital broadband access networks, has debuted a family of gigabit Ethernet PON (EPON) chips for low-cost fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and fiber-to-the-business (FTTB) equipment. Teknovus provides a complete EPON system-on-chip, based on the emerging 802.3ah standards effort, consisting of the TK3721 for EPON optical line terminals (OLTs) and the TK3701 for EPON optical network units (ONUs).
Teknovus is currently shipping its EPON System Development Kit, allowing vendors to begin software development, system design, and testing. The development kit includes OLT and ONU chip evaluation boards, firmware, and documentation.
According to Tetsu Koyama of NEC Electronics, "The Teknovus EPON Design Kit supports advanced EPON functionality such as dynamic bandwidth allocation, traffic shaping, SLA [service level agreement] management, and service provisioning. Early access to the design kits allows equipment vendors to begin developing EPON software and hardware, which results in a fast-time-to-market for their products."
EPONs are low-cost shared fiber-optic access networks that reduce the capital and operational expense of FTTH and FTTB systems by eliminating active devices in the outside plant, minimizing fiber deployment and reducing the number of optical ports at the central office. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.3ah Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) Task Force is in the process of defining a new standard for EPONs.
"EPON solves several key problems that our customers face in rolling out FTTH," says Yoshikazu Nose, general manager of the Semiconductor and Electronic Device Business Unit for Mitsubishi Corp, a Teknovus marketing partner in Japan. "Because of its shared-fiber architecture, EPON reduces space requirements in the central office and minimizes fiber deployment compared to point-to-point fiber systems. The highly integrated system-on-a-chip solution provided by Teknovus will enable equipment vendors to deliver gigabit Ethernet PON functionality at unprecedented price points. At these price points, we expect the EPON market to take off, particularly in Japan where service providers have already indicated that EPON will play an important role in their FTTH and FTTB networks."
Teknovus EPON FPGA Evaluation and Design Kits are available for delivery.