attendees' choice awards

Your guide to fiber-optic and optoelectronic products

Congratulations OFC 2001 WINNERSOFC attendees recognize design achievements

Lightwave is pleased to recognize the winners of our inaugural Attendees' Choice Awards, held at this year's Conference on Optical Fiber Communications (OFC) in Anaheim, CA, last March. The awards are designed to provide a "grass roots" view of what's hot and what's not, and hundreds of attendees took the time to tell us which products impressed them most at the show. The fact that the winner in the "Systems" category was a write-in candidate attests to the democratic nature of the awards program.

Look for additional Attendees' Choice Award opportunities at future shows.

SUBSYSTEMS

Bandwidth expander
The eXpander system integral expands the usable bandwidth of fiber into the S-band. The eXpander is capable of 96 channels of 10-Gbit/sec transmission at 50-GHz spacing. The benefit for carriers is quick deployment, new revenue opportunities, and additional capacity at lower cost per gigabit per kilometer. DWDM system vendors can integrate the product as a feature enhancement into their existing and emerging DWDM systems.

Xtera Communications, Allen, TX

DESIGN TOOLSCAD and simulationBeamPROP version 4.0 is a highly integrated CAD and simulation program for the design of integrated and fiber-optic waveguide devices and circuits. The main program contains a complete CAD layout system for design of waveguide devices and circuits and controls simulation features such as numerical parameters, input field, and display and analysis options. The simulation program, which can be executed within the main program or standalone, performs the actual simulation and provides a graphical display of the field and other quantities of interest for analysis.RSoft Inc., Ossining, NY

Optical channel analyzer
The WA-7600 multiline Wavemeter optical channel analyzer measures optical wavelengths in order to characterize and optimize DWDM transmission systems. It measures the absolute wavelength of up to 256 optical signals simultaneously to the highest accuracy of ±0.3 pm. This satisfies the accuracy requirements of today's DWDM systems with 50-GHz channel spacing and tomorrow's systems with 25-GHz spacing. The product also measures the individual power and OSNR of each optical signal.

Burleigh Instruments, Fishers, NY

COMPONENTS

Tunable bandpass filter
The AgileWave tunable bandpass filter is a digitally programmable, tunable grating module that enables routing of individual DWDM channels for optical-performance monitoring and diagnostics as well as tunable receivers. The device is accurately settable via a digital command to pass any 50-GHz ITU channel with the device operating band. Tuning is accomplished in an "optically open-loop" mode with good precision and repeatability, without wavelength referencing or spectrum analysis.

CiDRA Corp., Wallingford, CT

MANUFACTURING EQUIPMENT

Motion system
The FiberAlign 130 meets the needs of fiber-fiber, fiber-laser diode, and fiber-waveguide alignments. The product utilizes a center-driven, noncogging linear motor as the driving element for mass production of precision devices. The motor is capable of reaching speeds of 300 mm/ sec and accelerations of 1 g. Other features include a resolution of 10 nm for alignment applications and a software toolkit for access to commonly used functions.

Aerotech Inc., Pittsburgh

BEST OF SHOW

Optical switching system
The lambdaXchange optical switching system uses all-optical wavelength conversion, eliminating the need for intermediate electrical conversions and regeneration within backbone transport networks, according to the company. The all-optical switch enables network service providers to bring new services to market, such as time-of-day routing, bandwidth on demand, and wavelength reuse. The product integrates all-optical wavelength conversion, photonic switching, and add/drop and tunable DWDM transmission capabilities in a single platform.

Luxcore, Atlanta