Effect Photonics has announced a new, full-band tunable optical system-on-chip designed to meet the requirements of the expanding data centre interconnect (DCI) market.
Last year the company introduced a 100G transceiver capable of 80km reach using direct-detect technology (Going without gold: Effect Photonics unveils first products). This year it’s branching out into building blocks for coherent optical modules.
The new optical chip integrates a 40nm extended C-band tunable laser with on-chip wavelength measurement and control, as well as the 32Gbaud Mach-Zehnder modulators. These optical features address the requirements of advanced modulation formats.
Combining the optical functions on a single chip enables full on-wafer characterisation while Effect’s low-cost, non-hermetic packaging can reach the ever-decreasing cost points the market is looking for, the company claims.
CTO, Boudewijn Docter commented: “Effect continues to develop new optical functions which the market is looking for … Our low-cost packaging technology addresses the need to drive down the costs of optical transceiver modules for the data centre and metro segments.”
In future, the tunable laser design block will be combined into more complex, higher-functionality, multi-channel products.
A spin out from the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e), Effect Photonics is using optical integration in indium phosphide to create components for industry standard module formats (see Effect Photonics banks optical integration expertise).
Effect Photonics will be exhibiting at OFC 2017, booth #1328, in Los Angeles on 21–23 March, and running a separate demonstration of its optical SoC technology.