EINDHOVEN, Netherlands, 10 March 2016. Photonic integration start-up, EFFECT Photonics is launching its first product family based on its optical ‘System-on-Chip’ technology platform which integrates all the active and passive components of a DWDM system within a single chip, without traditional gold box packaging. This launch is the culmination of 5 years work to bring the technology to market–readiness.
EFFECT Photonics’ proposition addresses the soaring demand for affordable bandwidth between Data Centres and back from mobile cell towers by bringing Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing technology to the edges of the network. By using the high integration ‘System-on-Chip’ Technology, port density can be increased by over 6-times and operational expenses reduced by 40% when compared with existing approaches.
The product family includes transceivers for transmission of 100Gbps over 80km at lowest cost and power, together with high density solutions containing many wavelengths for emerging WDM Access markets in fronthaul, backhaul and NGPON2. Industry standard sockets are supported including CFP and CFP2, meaning the products can be used in existing and future systems.
James Regan, CEO commented “We could see a bandwidth crunch coming at the edges of the network and knew that DWDM could be the answer, but it had to be done differently, so we developed a holistic solution from the ground up. We have completely re-thought how to tackle the issues of cost, power and density. As well as integrating many optical functions into a single chip, we have reduced the cost and complexity of our packaging resulting in a commercially viable solution. Regan added “We’re now at the sampling stage which is a very exciting time for us, after all the hard work we’ve put in in the past 5 years”.
Andrew Schmitt, founder and analyst at Cignal Al, said “100 Gbps over 40km to 80km is a significant market opportunity that has no cost effective solution today. This is the next battleground for 100G solutions.”
