February 22, 2006 Morris Plains, NJ -- Xtellus, a supplier of advanced ROADM technology for the metro and long-haul optical equipment markets, recently introduced its XRM family of turnkey ROADM modules. The company says the integrated ROADM modules will allow optical networking system suppliers to more effectively build advanced ROADM network elements, without the performance penalties imposed by competitive module designs.
According to the company, the first module in the product family, the XRM-7500, permits system suppliers to add ROADM capabilities to their current optical networking equipment designs with as little as a single card upgrade. The company says this evolutionary approach allows suppliers to modify their existing equipment designs without undergoing extensive redesigns. Further, the company says this approach can also enable in-field upgrade capability for deployed equipment to support reconfigurable optical networking capabilities.
The company says its XRM-7500, a 4-port integrated module, delivers a suite of required ROADM functionality needed to drop wavelengths, equalize or block wavelengths on the through path, add wavelengths, and monitor optical power. The module's benefits for optical system suppliers, according to the company, include: an ability to reuse the demux and mux cards of existing designs to drop and add wavelengths; a single consolidated interface to control the pass-through equalization and optical power monitoring functions; a single-card slot form factor; low power consumption; and a free space, micro-optics-based design.
Based on proprietary wavelength blocker technology, the company says the XRM-7500 inherits the lowest insertion loss and widest passband performance of any metro ROADM module on the market; according to the company, this means that XRM-based designs support a virtually unlimited ability to cascade ROADM network elements, resulting in increased span distances and denser networks, providing maximum flexibility and lifetime upgradeability for carrier end-customers.
"With the XRM-7500, Xtellus is successfully responding to requests from customers for turnkey ROADM solutions that build on the proven optical performance of our liquid crystal-based wavelength blockers," comments Tom Dudley, CEO and president of Xtellus. "Unlike other integrated devices, the XRM-7500 provides a high level of integration without the need to sacrifice system performance."
Xtellus will display the XRM-7500 turnkey ROADM module at next month's OFC/NFOEC conference in Anaheim, CA.