Our 11th annual Lightwave Innovation Reviews saw technology developers submit products introduced or enhanced since March 2023 in various technology categories for review by our independent panel of judges. In some cases, that brought entries for products that will make their debuts at OFC 2024 this March.
Lightwave Editor-in-Chief Sean Buckley, in his role as Award Program Manager, assigned each entry to be reviewed by at least three judges knowledgeable in the relevant technology or application. As was the case in previous years, they rated each entry on the following scale:
0-1.5: Not a particularly useful product
2.0-2.5: Okay, but perhaps a commodity product
3.0-3.5: Solid product, usually with at least one attribute that sets it apart from commodity products
4.0-4.5: Excellent product with technical features and performance that provide clear and substantial benefits
5.0: Superb product that demonstrates breakthrough performance and/or innovation.
This year’s panel included:
- Sean Buckley, Editor in Chief, Lightwave
- Peter De Dobbelare, Cisco Fellow, Cisco Systems
- Jorg-Peter Elbers, SVP, advanced technology, standards and IPR, Adtran
- Mike Frankel, Ciena fellow, Ciena
- Lisa Huff, principal analyst, optical components, OVUM
- Tom Issenhuth, principal at Issenhuth Consulting
- Vladimir Kozlov, founder and CEO of LightCounting
- Patrick McLaughlin, editor in chief, Cabling Installation & Maintenance
- Rick Talbot, principal analyst - intelligent network transport, ACG Research
- Jim Theodoras, vice president of R&D, HG Genuine USA.
- Dr. Tiejun J. (TJ) Xia, a distinguished member of the technical staff at Verizon
And, as has been the tradition, we honor the following entries for achieving a score of at least 3.5 on that 1 to 5 scale. Congratulations to all the companies listed below. Be sure to look for these companies at OFC 2024 to learn more.
Carrier Fiber, Cable, Enclosures, and Accessories
Go!Foton: Multiport Mid-Span Terminal
HFCL Ltd.: Intermittently Bonded Ribbon Microcable, 288-576 fibers
Legrand: The Infinium Access UHD+ Enclosure
Communications Semiconductors and Electrical ICs
Henkel Corporation: Bergquist® Hi Flow THF 5000UT (Thermal Management Material)
Infinera: WA’A 400G Digital Signal Processor (DSP)
InSiGa: ISG-2925H 25G CDR+EML&BM LA Combo Chip
InSiGa: ISG-D5640H 56Gbaud MZ Driver for LPO Solution
Marvell: Orion 800 Gbps Coherent DSP
Point2 Technology: P3A280 Electrical Dispersion Compensation Mixed-Signal SoC
Data Center Fiber, Cable, Enclosures and Accessories
Infraeo Inc.: 8x50G QSFP-DD-to-OSFP 4x100G & QSFP-DD-to-QSFP112 AEC Series
Sumitomo Electric: Q102-M12+ Ribbon Fiber Splicer
US Conec, Ltd.: Next Generation Multi-fiber Connector
Data Center Interconnect Platforms
Fujitsu Network Communications: 1FINITY™ Ultra Optical System
Go!Foton: PEACOC® EVA High-Density Fiber Patch Panel
Huawei: Huawei OptiXtrans DC908 Pro
Marvell: Nova 1.6 Tbps PAM4 Electro-Optics Platform
Nubis Communications, Inc.: XT1600 High-density Linear Optical Engine
Field Test Equipment
AFL: FlowScout SE100
AFL: Fujikura 45S Cladding Alignment Fusion Splicer
Spirent Communications: Spirent M1 Compact Appliance
VeEX Inc.: FX120 PON Analyzer and Multi-Gig Service QoE Test Set
VeEX Inc.: RFTS-400 Remote Fiber Test System (RFTS)
VeEX Inc.: RXT-4113+ xWDM OTDR Test Module
VeEX Inc.: RXT-6800 Advanced 800G Multi-Service Test Module
VIAVI Solutions: INX 760 Inspection Probe Microscope
FTTx Systems
Calix: Enhancements to the Intelligent Access EDGE Solution
Harmonic: cOS™ Broadband Platform
Infinera: High-Speed Bus. Services Over Existing PON Infrastructure
SANWA Technologies, Inc.: Pluggable PLC Splitter
ZTE Corporation: FTTR-B Solution
ZTE Corporation: Tbit All-Optical Access Platform ZXA10 C600E
Lab/Production Test Equipment
Coherent Corp: WaveShaper 4000B / O-Band
Keysight Technologies, Inc.: AresONE 800GE Dual Interface Model-M
Quantifi Photonics: QCA Series High-Speed Communication Analyzer
Santec Corporation: RD-SP-100 Remote-head Integrating Sphere & Polarity Detector
Spirent Communications: Spirent B2 800G 8-Port Appliances
VIAVI Solutions: ONE LabPro
Optical Components
Coherent Corp: 140 Gbaud IC-TROSA 800G DCO pluggable transceivers
Lumentum: 130+ GBaud Smart TROSA
Precision Optical Technologies: Genesee™ Dispersion Compensation ASIC
Ridgemount Technologies Limited: The Ridgemount LC-QR™ [Quick Release] simplex connector
Senko: SN-MT Uniboot Connector
Source Photonics: Single Lambda 200 Gbps PAM4 EML chip for 1.6T
Teramount: TeraVERSE
Optical Subsystems
Huawei: Digital Quick ODN Solution (DQ ODN Solution)
Lumentum: TrueFlex® 16x26 Contentionless Wavelength Selective Switch
Ribbon Communications: Apollo MPQ_8 High Density 400G/800G ZR+ Metro Transport
ZTE Corporation: Intelligent optical line risk analysis system
Optical Transceivers and Transponders
Coherent Corp: 800G coherent pluggable DCO module in QSFP DD form factor
Eoptolink Technology Inc., Ltd.: 800G-DR8 Linear-drive Pluggable Optics (LPO) Transceiver
Infraeo Inc.: 400G QSFP-DD SR4 Multimode Transceiver
InnoLight Technology: 800G OSFP112 LRO AOC
Jabil, Inc.: 800G Active Optical Cable Product Family
Lumentum: 800G ZR/ZR+ Transceivers
Marvell: COLORZ® 800 ZR/ZR+ Pluggable Module
Source Photonics: 100G SFP112 Product family
Source Photonics: 800G 4x200G FR4/LR4 OSFP Transceivers
Optical Transport Systems
Ciena: 5169
Ciena: 8140
DZS: Saber RDM-4400
Fujitsu Network Communications: 1FINITY™ Ultra Optical System
Huawei: OptiX OSN 9800 M24
Huawei: SE-OTN Solution
Infinera: GX Open Optical Multi-haul Line System
Nokia: 6th-gen Super-Coherent Photonic Service Engine (PSE-6s)
SDN/NFV Technology
DZS: Xtreme