FREE subscription
Subscribe for free to receive each issue of Semiconductor Today magazine and weekly news brief.

News

23 December 2008

 

Mitsubishi launches XLMD-MSA compliant 43Gb/s transmitter and receiver devices

Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Electric Corp says that in February it will begin sample shipments of two 43Gb/s optical devices compliant with the 40Gb/s miniature device multi-source agreement (XLMD-MSA, effective since March 2007 among Eudyna Devices Inc, Mitsubishi Electric Corp, NEC Electronics Corp, Oki Electric Industry Co, Ltd, Opnext Inc and Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd).

With increased Internet traffic in recent years, service providers have been rushing to expand the transmission volume of optical communications networks. To increase optical transmission speed between metropolitan-area networks and routers, there is hence growing demand for network replacements that achieve a transmission speed of 43Gb/s (up from the previous 10Gb/s).

In February 2008, optical device makers including Mitsubishi Electric announced common specifications for pigtail-type optical devices based on the XLMD-MSA, but XLMD-MSA compliant transmitter and receiver devices have yet to be launched by a single manufacturer. Mitsubishi Electric now reckons that it will be the first optical device maker to ship XLMD-MSA compliant optical devices for both ends of optical transmission.

The FU-697SEA (costing 650,000 yen) is claimed to be the first XLMD-MSA compliant optical transmitter device. A package 15% smaller than that of the preceding model (the FU-642SEA) incorporates an external-modulation laser and Mitsubishi Electric’s original built-in bias circuit, which sends DC bias voltage to the modulator independent from the circuit connecting the driver IC. The output voltage of the built-in single-chip driver IC is hence effectively applied to increase the on/off extinction ratio performance in optical transmission, contributing to greater stability in network communications.

The FU-397SPP (costing 500,000 yen) is an XLMD-MSA compliant photodiode with a trans-impedance amplifier (PIN-TIA) receiver device at the opposite end that has high reception performance with a wide dynamic range of over 9dB. Its size is 30% smaller than the previous model (the FU-342SPP, launched in April).

The devices will be displayed at the Fiber Optics EXPO (FOE 2009) in Tokyo (21-23 January). Mitsubishi Electric reckons that they should contribute to the spread of 43Gb/s optical transmission networks.

See related item:

Mitsubishi Electric launches low-noise GaAs HEMT for satellite digital radio

Search: Mitsubishi Electric

Visit: http://global.mitsubishielectric.com