June 10, 2005 Santa Clara, CA -- Passavé, a provider of semiconductors for FTTH applications, has announced commercial availability of its third-generation PAS6201 EPON optical networking unit (ONU). The company says the device builds on its first and second-generation PAS6001 ONU chips, which it claims were the first IEEE 802.3ah-compliant EPON ONU devices to ship in large volumes. Earlier this year, PAS6001 shipments topped one million, according to the company.
According to the company, by providing a highest level of integration, its PAS6201 ONU chip has achieved one of the lowest-cost bill of materials (BOM) for EPON ONUs, reaching BOM savings of more than $16 over the latest-generation devices recently announced by competing vendors. The company says its chip enables triple-play services by providing gigabit-line-rate performance and one of the highest levels of programmability among competing devices.
The company says the PAS6201 is the only PON ONU device to incorporate a complete ONU system-on-a-chip and an embedded, high-performance ARM9 CPU, running standard operating systems such as Linux and VxWorks. According to the company, this capability enables a true open-system environment and provides compatibility with standardized, third-party software for functions such as switching, VoIP, and an embedded web server. The company says the chip's flexible packet-processing engine performs advanced flow classification, enabling segregation of services and guaranteed services throughout the network.
The chip supports the company's suite of programmable dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) algorithms, providing advanced traffic-reporting and management functionality. This capability supports advanced QoS (quality of service) and high network efficiency in anticipation of changing traffic patterns and future applications, according to the company. The company says the chip is also among the first Ethernet devices to provide forward error correction (FEC), which according to the company enables carriers to double the reach of an FTTH network, or to double the number of customers that can be served from a single optical line terminal (OLT) in a central office.
"With second-generation PAS6001 chips passing one-million-unit shipments, Passavé is the only chip vendor that truly understands the complexities of mass deployment of FTTH," contends Ariel Maislos, president of Passavé. "Now, with the PAS6201 third-generation ONU chip, we are solving problems that other vendors without volume deployments do not even know exist."
The PAS6201 chip is currently shipping in volume.