Directory server for e-business
At March's CeBIT trade show in Hanover Siemens Information and Communications Networks demonstrated its DirX Extranet Edition Vs1.0 high-performance directory server for e-business applications. The DirX Extranet server is based on the international Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) V3 standard.
Geared to managing large volumes of data and allowing fast access for many users simultaneously, DirX Extranet Edition is suited to service providers, carriers, and large enterprises that want to set up an extranet.
A database allows storage of hundreds of millions of customer entries. The new access system can handle many simultaneous accesses, and an optimised indexing system ensures the required information can be found quickly.
Bulk loading allows much data to be loaded in a short time, such as when loading existing user data for the first time or adding a new data group to existing ones.www.siemens.com/directorySingle-chip management controller
FibroLAN has demonstrated its new Dual Link Access devices and Local Traffic Aggregators.
In addition, the MA (MicroAgent) single-chip management controller for FTTx (fibre to the...) networks allows full management functionality at a fraction of an SNMP agent cost, with no IP address needed, the company claims. MA technology also allows Layer 1 bandwidth provisioning and loop-back diagnostics.
Fibre splice recoater and proof tester
Fujikura Europe has introduced the FSR-02 Recoater and Proof Tester for recoating the UV-curable bare-glass region of a fibre splice or fibre Bragg grating and then proof testing to verify the spliced fibre strength.
The FSR-02 uses a linear translating die to extrude the UV compound along the length of the bare-glass spliced region and automatically injects the UV resin into the mould. A two-part mating quartz glass mould provides a circular cross-section mould cavity and lasts for up to as many as 10,000 re-coats.
Proof test performance is programmable for forces up to 20N. Curing is assured by an ultra-violet sensor monitor that automatically compensates for lamp intensity by adjusting the curing time.
www.fujikura.co.uk
Ring capability for metro access
Adva Optical Networking has announced support for ring topologies with add/drop capability for its Fiber Service Platform (FSP) 1000 metropolitan optical access solution. This platform is a TDM feeder system capable of aggregating up to eight data streams onto a single 2.488Gbit/s fibre pair.
The combination offers optimisation and provisioning of transport services between local points in a metropolitan area network as well as the protection capabilities of ring topologies.
A metropolitan Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) system could therefore have management and integrity properties similar to that of SDH/SONET systems, says Adva.
www.advaoptical.com
'First' hybrid optical platform for wireless
ECI Telecom company Lightscape Networks of Petah Tikva, Israel has unveiled the XDM-400, the latest hybrid optical platforms in its XDM family. These, Lightscape claims, are the first optical platforms in the industry for cellular operators.
Nonlinear holey fibre
INO is now able to make what it is calling holey fibre. The combination of a solid core and a reduced effective index in the cladding region (resulting from the longitudinal hole's matrix) allows the propagation of light in a way similar to conventional fibre.
Although several designs of these new fibres have been made, INO has concentrated on developing holey fibres with very small cores. Nonlinear effects inherent to the size of the core are greatly enhanced.
INO has announced that it is willing to create cooperative partnerships involving this technology.
www.ino.ca
- A digital variable optical attenuator DVOA2201 for both the metro transport and switching market and high-performance long-haul market. It features open-loop, dynamic digital control of attenuation via a standard serial interface with only a 5V power supply. This eliminates optical taps and detectors as well as calibration at the customer's site.
- A new L-band model of Lightconnect's digital gain equaliser (DGE) adjusts optical power in different spectral bands and dynamically compensates for the spectral non-uniformity of EDFA or Raman optical amplifiers. It is now optimised for either C- or L-band operation and is customer configurable over a range of 40km for long-haul and ultra-long-haul dynamic optical networks.
This incorporates a continuously tunable VCSEL laser, directly modulated from OC-3 through OC-48.
The transmitter provides >1mW (at 0dBm) modulated output power per channel, as well as wavelength locking technology and amplification within a single integrated package. The laser is targeted at remote wavelength configuration and sparing in metro optical networks.
Tuning options range from 8-20 ITU channels at 100GHz spacing and 16-40 ITU channels at 50GHz spacing in the C or L band in less than 1ms.
www.bw9.com
Longest-reach C-band and L-band metro transmitters
Nortel Networks claims that its LC25 series of directly modulated 2.5Gbit/s metro DWDM lasers is the longest-reach, lowest cost-per-km optical transmitter across both the C and L bands.
The LC25W and the LC25EW have four power options (from 2-10mW peak), provide up to 360km reach (when paired with the NTMM94AB Directly Modulated Laser Diode Driver), and cover 80 DWDM channels at 100GHz spacing. The LC25EW includes an integrated etalon wavelength locker for increased wavelength stability.
The LC25ET spans up to 175km, is rapidly tunable over four adjacent 100GHz DWDM channels in the C band, and also integrates an etalon wavelength locker.
www.nortelnetworks.com
Metro network monitoring
NetTest claims that its Metrowatch is the only surveillance solution that continuously and automatically monitors the status of metro area networks, without the need for a fibre-optic or OTDR expert. Features include:
- plug-and-play installation, which allows network managers to have it up and running in minutes, without any prior fibre expertise;
- a web interface, which provides remote and easy configuration and use, allowing the network manager to focus on other aspects of the network;
- automatic monitoring of the network and alerting of fibre problems to the network manager or maintenance contractor, eliminating the need to manually determine if it is a fibre or equipment failure and enabling tracking of service level agreements and optical QoS;
- web access enables remote network management, eliminating the need for a central telecoms office.
Metrowatch can monitor up to 24 fibres from a single unit and spans or rings of up to 100km.
www.nettest.com
High-bandwith optical receivers
Distributor AMS Technologies' Fiberoptic Division presented high-bandwith 10 and 40Gbit/s receivers in a small coplanar package which improve performance and reliability of fibre infrastructures for city, access and long-haul networks.
It also presented MEMS technologies, modulators and drivers, pump lasers, and active optical components such as photodiodes, FP and DFB lasers, detectors, trans-impedance amplifiers and integrated silicon-based components, as well as passive components including DWDM filters, isolators and couplers.
The OptoTech Division of AMS Technologies showed Ficontec GmbH's FilterMaster, an automated filter measurement system for thin film filters, which measures automatically all decisive optical parameters of thin film filters with 60dB dynamic range.
www.ams.de
CMEMS-based tunable filters
Solus Micro Technologies is sampling its first product offering: the TFM series of high-performance tunable Fabry-Perot filters.
The TFM series incorporates Solus Micro Technologies' Compliant MEMS technology. CMEMS is robust, simple in design, more reliable and cheaper than traditional silicon-based MEMS, Solus claims.
The TFM family is designed to be integrated into DWDM applications in long-haul and metro networks, including optical performance monitoring and gain flattening.
The filters deliver finesse of up to 2,000 for superior channel selectivity, high filter contrast for precise measurements of optical power and signal/noise ratio, and low insertion loss for greater cost efficiency. www.solustech.comDWDM mux/demux and interleaver
Based on silica-on-silicon arrayed waveguide grating technology, Grenoble-based OpsiTech's Multiplexer/DeMultiplexer offers a range of dense-channel-spacing passive optical components for DWDM optical transmissions. The series includes high-channel-count (8-40) 200GHz, 100GHz and 50GHz mux/demuxes.
Also, OpsiTech's series of 10Gbit/s 25, 50 and 100GHz interleavers - which have 2, 4 and 8 channel outputs - can demultiplex 25GHz-spaced channels into four sets of 100GHz spaced channels.
www.opsitech.com
Cross connect for dynamically re-configurable services
Lynx Photonic Networks demonstrated its Photon.FXC (Fibre Cross-Connect) product family. These are based on its Photon.PCSS switch matrices, featuring planar lightwave circuit technology, a software-controlled, remotely managed network element that enables automatic configuration and fully dynamic reconfiguration of bi-directional fibre links.
Photon.FXC supports protection and restoration switching algorithms with much less than 50ms between Loss Of Signal alarms and restoration of network services to the alternate routed path. Switching occurs in less than 3ms.
Photon.FXC also enables what it calls "bolt-on" performance upgrades of existing networks, such as enhancement of limited configuration choices on OADMs whereby static drops are converted to dynamically reconfigurable services.
www.LynxPN.com
Planar 2.5Gbit/s metro transceiver modules
Alcatel Optronics has launched two compact active modules for 2.5Gbit/s metro applications in standard mini-DIL packages.
The 1922 LMS 1300nm DFB laser module includes a distributed feedback InGaAsP-based laser chip and monitoring photodiode for transmission up to 40km. It is directly
modulated at up to 2.7Gbit/s (for applications with forward error correction) and has an output power of up to 2mW for STM16/OC 48 applications.
The 1924 DMS receiver module includes an InGaAs avalanche photodiode and has a low-capacitance active area for maximum responsivity and speed. Coupled with a single-mode fibre, it integrates a linear silicon-germanium preamplifier. With an overload of -5dBm and a sensitivity of -34dBm, it is suited to SDH/SONET 2.5Gbit/s and long-haul transmissions.
The use of planar silicon substrate technology simplifies the alignment of fibre to active diodes, reducing assembly time by more than 50%.
www.alcatel.com/optronics
Optical channel testing
LIGHTech Fiberoptics Inc has unveiled its LT1000 1xN series testing equipment.
The 1xN programmable switch system is offered with either single or dual channels to any "N" up to 200 optical channels and delivers low insertion loss at 0.7dB and high repeatability at 0.01dB.
The LT1000 can be equipped with other switches and fibre taps to offer a flexible architecture for custom applications.
The LT1000 series is also designed for use in channel monitoring, R&D laboratories, remote network testing, manufacturing testing systems, field test systems, and transmitter/receiver measurements.www.lightech.net15 mW DFB laser module
Quantum Devices Inc's Lambda Light is a narrowly tunable, temperature-tuned, phase-shifted indium phosphide-based distributed feedback laser module. It is available in both a continuous wave version with up to 15mW power and a directly modulated version up to 2.5Gbit/s with over 5mW of peak optical output power.
Lambda Light can be used as a primary or spare source laser module for point-to-point WDM, low-speed wavelength-routed networks, optical add/drop, and precision test/measurement applications.
It is continuously tunable over four adjacent ITU wavelengths at 100GHz spacing or eight adjacent ITU wavelengths at 50GHz spacing, spanning the full C-band with centre ITU wavelengths of 1530-1565nm.
www.qdi-usa.com
Chromatic dispersion analyser
After being first to launch a portable polarisation mode dispersion analyser a few years ago, Exfo Electro-Optical Engineering has released the FTB-5800 chromatic dispersion analyser, a high-performance test module inside the FTB-400 field-testing platform for deployments and upgrades of high-speed DWDM networks.
Carriers can now simultaneously perform all of their dispersion tests with a single, rugged and portable platform, EXFO says.
The FTB-5800 enables testing of not only sections of a link but the entire link at once because it can sweep through amplifiers such as EDFAs. Also, it uses full-wavelength characterisation, not merely interpolation from a few acquired points.www.ams-technologies.comPallet loading workstation
Newport France's PL4200 Pallet Loading workstation enables the pre-placement of packaging components in magazines of up to eight pallets onto a palletised tooling system prior to loading. This can raise throughput by segmenting processes and running them in parallel with the AMS4200-P or AW4200 laser welding workstations.
Docking and tooling platforms are interchangeable for different package
Device bonder for standard and flip-chip opto components[email protected] MicroTec has introduced the FC250 Device Bonder for standard as well as flip-chip component attachment in volume production of optoelectronics modules.
An imaging system and bonding arm give a post-bonding accuracy better than 1 micron for forces from 10gf (for sensitive components such as lasers) to 200kgf (for thermcompression of indium or gold bumps) while maintaining a throughput of up to 250 bonds per hour.
The system is optimised for a passive alignment process flow, so it overcomes the constraints of the self-alignment process (such as forming mechanical stops) and the active-alignment process (where the fibre is aligned with respect to the laser diode while the component is powered slowly to the optimal position).
www.suss.de