Oclaro touts InP components for 100G coherent CFP2

Optical component and subsystem developer Oclaro, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCLR) will use next week’s OFC/NFOEC in Anaheim, CA, to highlight its efforts to develop a CFP2 pluggable module for 100-Gbps coherent-transmission applications in fiber-optic networks. The module will leverage several optical component building blocks using Oclaro’s indium phosphide (InP) expertise, including a tunable transmitter.

Oclaro is qualifying the transmit optical subassembly (TOSA) and receive optical subassembly (ROSA) for the module now, company sources told Lightwave. When completed, the integrated 100G transmitter will replace two discrete narrow-linewidth tunable lasers (typically external cavity iTLAs), and an external Mach-Zehnder modulator with a single component. That component will double as both the transmitter and as the local oscillator for the coherent receiver. The micro coherent receiver, meanwhile, integrates InP optical hybrids, dual balanced waveguide photodetectors, and transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs).

The company will begin sampling the components to customers this year.Oclaro expects to sample a tunable 100G CFP2 optical transceiver early next year, perhaps even very late this year, the sources said. The Oclaro sources noted that deployment of 100-Gbps coherent CFP2 modules awaits the development of companion DSPs. The sources said they expect the DSPs to be available in time for production ramp of the CFP2 transceivers in mid-2014.

For more information on optical components and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.