News: Optoelectronics
12 May 2021
NeoPhotonics ships 2 millionth ultra-narrow-linewidth laser for coherent transmission systems
NeoPhotonics Corp of San Jose, CA, USA – a vertically integrated designer and manufacturer of silicon photonics and hybrid photonic integrated circuit (PIC)-based lasers, modules and subsystems for high-speed communications – says that it has now shipped a cumulative total of more than 2 million of its ultra-narrow-linewidth tunable lasers since initiating shipments in 2011.
Narrow-linewidth tunable lasers are key elements of coherent data transmission systems used in telecommunications and in data-center interconnects for the cloud. They provide both the light that carries the transmitted data and a reference laser that is used to decode the data. As data rates increase to 400Gbps, 600Gbps and 800Gbps through the use of higher symbol rates and higher modulation orders, it becomes increasingly essential to have the purest possible laser light source that exhibits the lowest possible noise. NeoPhotonics says that its ultra-pure-light tunable lasers meet this essential requirement by having the narrowest linewidth in the industry (the purest color, without noise or other distortion).
To maximize the data-carrying capacity of optical fibers, NeoPhotonics provides these ultra-pure-light tunable lasers with wider tuning ranges, supporting more channels and ultimately increasing total fiber capacity. For high-baud-rate, high-capacity-per-wavelength systems, NeoPhotonics’ ultra-narrow-linewidth tunable lasers are also available in a C++ LASER configuration, which has a tuning range of 6THz and covers the full ‘Super C-band’. This is 50% more spectrum than a standard laser and supports 80 channels with 75GHz-per-channel spacing, achieving a total fiber capacity of 32 Terabits per second using 400Gbps transceivers in each channel. NeoPhotonics’ ultra-pure-light tunable lasers are also available in versions that cover the L-band, essentially doubling fiber capacity.
NeoPhotonics began shipping narrow-linewidth tunable lasers in 2011 in the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) standard ITLA form factor, which was about 3-inches long and 1-inch wide. The firm introduced its Micro-ITLA in 2014, which reduced the size by half. In 2019 it introduced the Nano-ITLA, again reducing the size approximately by half. In addition to what is claimed to be best-in-class low phase noise, the Nano-ITLA has low electrical power consumption, making it suitable for small-form-factor pluggable coherent modules. The Nano-ITLA is now featured in the NeoPhotonics 400ZR QSFP-DD module, which is a complete coherent transceiver capable of sending 400Gbps of data up to 1000km, in a package size that is not very different from the original ITLA laser alone.
“We are pleased to have provided our customers over the last decade with both industry-leading performance and industry-leading volume, reaching 1 million cumulative shipments in 2019 and now 2 million shipments just two years later,” says chairman & CEO Tim Jenks. “As industry data rates have increased from 100Gbps to now 800Gbps, the low noise and low power consumption of our lasers have become increasingly important, and their unique qualities have opened up completely new application areas such as satellite communications, remote sensing, automotive LiDAR and medical diagnostics,” he adds.
