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Access-Ready Coherent
Expanding Connectivity Solutions
Network carriers want to provide communications solutions in all areas: mobile access, cable networks, and fixed access to business customers. In the mobile sector, carriers must deliver on their 5G promises without the expensive deployment of new fiber infrastructure. In the cable sector, there will be a significant expansion in deploying fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) links and passive optical networks (PONs).
In the business sector, the most bandwidth-hungry business customers will require high-capacity links of 25G, 50G, or 100G. Carriers want to provide not just this extra capacity but also innovative and personalized connectivity and entertainment services to their customers.
A Coherent Upgrade
In the next decade, legacy direct detect technologies in access networks will not be enough to cover the growing bandwidth demands of mobile, cable, and business sectors with the required reach. Such a scenario will require using coherent technology, which uses digital signal processing (DSP) to transmit more information over longer distances. This upgrade to coherent technology comes with some challenges.
Key Challenges
- Coherent systems need more optical elements and a DSP, which makes them more complex and expensive than direct detect systems.
- The additional elements (especially the DSP) introduce more heat and power consumption.
- Coherent technology has often lived in indoor equipment rooms and data centers but not in outside areas such as antennas.
Tight Integration Between Photonics and Electronics
Reducing the cost and power consumption of coherent systems requires increasing integrating the optics and electronic components more tightly than ever. This integration reduces the system losses and power consumption, and makes it easier to manufacture optoelectronic devices at large volumes.
Key Solutions
- By working with trusted manufacturing partners and making photonic integrated circuits more compatible with electronic ecosystems and devices, EFFECT Photonics can reach the large production volumes required to reduce the cost per device.
- Co-designing the coherent optics with the DSP allows greater integration of optics and electronics, reducing losses and power consumption.
- By taking advantage of packaging solutions from the electronics sector, EFFECT Photonics can design and realize packaging that can meet industrial, automotive, and space standards, allowing coherent devices to live outdoors.
