Aegis Lightwave, providing optical channel monitoring systems to the fiber-optic communications industry, has introduced the CTM 1350, an ultra-compact 40 x 23 x 9-mm channel monitor, roughly the size of a thumb drive. The CTM 1350 is on exhibit at OFC/NFOEC 2011 in Booth 2447.
The cost and size of the CTM 1350 is well suited for dense reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) line cards that continue to pack more functionality, including wavelength switching, optical amplification, and channel monitoring, in a denser footprint, says a company representative. As ROADM functionality migrates to the edge of the optical network, size and cost become the dominant enabling factors.
“Aegis continues to forge ahead with our mission to advance the state of the art in channel monitors,” says Jeff Farmer, president and CEO, Aegis Lightwave. “The CTM 1350 is now available to customers and serves a growing trend to increasingly monitor more points on the ROADM line card than has previously been possible.”
Engineers at Aegis were able to reduce the size and cost of the channel monitor function by leveraging the latest generation of digital electronics and by developing innovative, computationally efficient algorithms, according to a company representative. The CTM 1350 is less than half the size of its predecessor, the CTM 1250. The CTM 1350’s I2C interface enables system designers to communicate efficiently with multiple channel monitors distributed on a line card.