March 4, 2005 Monterey Park, CA -- Kotura, a provider of silicon photonic components, has introduced its Ultra Variable Optical Attenuator 1030, which the company calls a very fast single channel VOA in a compact package.
"When a back hoe cuts an optical fiber, spikes in optical power can create noise or damage other components in the network. VOAs must have a response time of less than a few microseconds to prevent this from happening," explains Arlon Martin, the company's VP of sales and marketing. "Our VOAs solve this problem. In addition, they can implement the modulation schemes required for emerging network features like wavelength tracking."
According to the company, built using standard CMOS manufacturing techniques, the device is a single silicon chip packaged with no moving parts. Attenuation is accomplished by free carrier absorption. Because of its fast response time, the company says the device is ideal for transient control and wavelength tracking applications. It also performs standard VOA functions like power balancing and channel equalization.
The company's existing VOA products, 4- and 8-channel Ultra VOA Arrays, have achieved full Telcordia qualification and are in volume manufacture. The new product is for single channel applications, and is sampling now. Production quantities are expected by October 2005.
The company will showcase the product at Booth 2010 at next week's OFC/NFOEC conference.