Draka unveils BendBright-Elite ultra-bend insensitive fiber

JANUARY 23, 2009 -- Draka Communications (search for Draka Communications) today announced a new type of Ultra-Bend Insensitive Fiber, BendBright-Elite, a sister product to BendBright-XS, its bend-insensitive optical fiber for FTTx applications. The company says BendBright-Elite is specially customized and fine-tuned for component intra-connections and specialty applications.
 
Tighter bendable fibers are not only enhancing FTTx applications through easier installations, they are also impacting component and specialties markets, says the company, by reducing component size and volume, minimizing the cost of ownership, and enabling improved system density and optimizing footprint. Another clear advantage for Ultra-Bend Insensitive Fiber is to facilitate handling during manufacturing, thus reducing assembly time--and hence production costs--of optimized footprint components and specialty subsystems.
 
Based upon Draka's knowledge of trench-assisted core structures, BendBright-Elite is an entirely new product within the company's DrakaElite specialty fiber family suite, which was unveiled last year. This new product further enhances bend loss specifications and is of particular value for component intra-connection applications, a market segment where tighter bend radii are required, say company representatives.
 
With more integration and smaller footprints required for optical components to keep up with trends in miniaturization, processing power, and data rates, coiling fibers inside optical components necessitates severe bend radius constraints. Draka claims its BendBright-Elite brings an unrivaled level of bend performance at any bend radius, while preserving full compatibility with standard singlemode fiber. This allows immediate footprint and handleability benefits, for all components and specialty subsystems traditionally designed around standard intra-connecting singlemode fiber.

In addition, BendBright-Elite offers, as a standard feature, high strength (200 kpsi strain), mandatory for increased reliability at very tight bends, as well as tight geometry, which is needed for component applications. Draka's latest specialty fiber meets the requirements of specialty applications in a diversity of environments. BendBright-Elite is also available, on request, with high temperature coatings, 150C, 200C, for harsh usage environments such as aerospace or marine, oil and gas.
 
"We've been listening to customers in the component and sub-assembly specialty markets, especially those working with military, medical, marine oil and gas sensors, and we recognized there was great value for them to design their components or sub-systems around fibers with tighter bending performances," explains Aurélien Bergonzo, product line manager for DrakaElite specialty fibers. "BendBright-Elite's fine-tuned specification is the response they were waiting for to meet their exacting, demanding specifications."
 
Leveraging the flexibility and performance of a unique manufacturing platform,
Draka says its BendBright-Elite is made possible by combining trench-assisted core structures with the flexibility of its Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition (PCVD) manufacturing process.
 
According to company representatives, Draka Communications introduced the first generation of bend-insensitive fiber, BendBright, in 2002. Updated in 2005 to conform to low water peak standards, G.652.D, BendBright is a G.657.A fiber, with approximately ten times bending improvement over standard singlemode fiber. The second generation bend-insensitive fiber BendBright-XS, a G.657.B fiber with a hundred times bending improvement over standard singlemode fiber, was introduced in 2006.
  

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