Finisar launched a new product family at this year’s OFC conference in San Diego, complementing its line of coherent components and Analog Coherent Optics (ACO) transceivers. Called the Integrated Tunable Transmitter and Receiver Assembly (ITTRA), the new product family is heralded as the industry's smallest fully integrated coherent optics assembly.
Designed for easy customer integration into coherent line cards or DCO (Digital Coherent Optics) transceivers, ITTRA enables customers to accelerate their time to market and reduce program and development costs. In a footprint that is 70% smaller than the size of a CFP2 module, the ITTRA provides the same functionality as a CFP2-ACO. All key building blocks of an ACO interface (tunable laser, optical amplifier, modulators, drivers, coherent mixer, photodiode array, and TIAs) are incorporated in a single optical sub-assembly, which is combined with a miniature controller board that provides customers a standardised management interface. As the ITTRA is a fully calibrated and tested assembly, it yields operational cost savings for the line card or module integrator because test times of the end product are greatly reduced.
The demonstration at OFC 2018 showed the 32Gbaud ITTRA transmitting and receiving data at 200 Gb/s using DP-16QAM modulation. John DeMott, senior director of marketing at Finisar commented: ‘Customers that have previewed this product acknowledge the exceptional level of integration achieved in Finisar's ITTRA, and we have a tremendous amount of interest in this product due to its performance, compact footprint, and low power dissipation. A turn-key solution like the ITTRA, greatly reduces the development effort for the line card or module integrator, allowing them to rapidly respond to new market opportunities.’
The product will be sampling in the second quarter of 2018.