Furukawa Electric introduces OC-192 Tunable Transponder

September 5, 2002

Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. has developed a tunable transponder for 10 gigabits-per-second (10Gb/s) for DWDM transmissions with the smallest size and the lowest power consumption. The transponder features a wavelength-tunability over eight channels at 50GHz (0.4nm) spacing and a 50GHz wavelength locker. The transponder is a Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) compliant module for electrical/optical interface. The transponder is in a compact package which measures 3.5" x 4.5" x 0.53" (89mm x 114.3mm x 13.5mm). In addition, the transponder has an adjusting function of signal performance which is practically useful for long-haul OFA systems. This is the first product of Furukawa for the optical transceiver market and it will be focusing on this kind of products as well as current products of optical amplifiers and pumping lasers.

This newly developed tunable transponder offers flexible and cost-saving solutions for system-equipment manufacturers and DWDM-system maintenance. In a WDM system, a number of transponders (or transmitters) are deployed at both terminal ends. For conventional transponders with fixed wavelengths, each transponder corresponds to one wavelength channel. The number of transponders can exceed 100 in a dense-WDM system. With Furukawa's tunable transponder, the number of product variety required can be reduced by a factor of 8.

Taking advantage of Furukawa's experiences on optical telecommunication technologies including semiconductor laser technology and OFA technology, the transponder well meets the requirement of practical 10Gb/s DWDM OFA systems in the performances of size, power consumption, and several functions important for signal quality.

Furukawa Electric will start to ship samples in October 2002 and production from the 1st Quarter in 2003.

Furukawa Electric will exhibit the new transponder at ECOC (European Conference on Optical Communication) to be held on 9-11 September 2002 in Copenhagen, Denmark.