POET enters telecom market with latest optical engine

POET Technologies Inc., designer and developer of POET Optical Interposer and Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) for the data centre and tele-communication markets, has completed design of a 100G LR4 (4 channel Long Reach) optical engine with a reach of 10km (kilometers) for client-side interconnects to data centers, enterprises and edge computing networks.

Of the five common types of 100G transceiver modules found within the data center, two types – CWDM4 and PSM4 are targeted at data communications up to 2km. SR4 (500m), LR4 (10km) and ER4 (40km) are the other types typically specified for 100G data communications.

POET’s focus on CWDM4 and LR4 designs is based on its unique and differentiating capability to integrate a fully monolithic 4-channel multiplexing and demultiplexing functionality directly into its waveguides, avoiding the costly requirement to align and couple additional devices into a transceiver module.

POET’s LR4 design converts 4 input channels of 25Gb/s electrical data into 4 LAN WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) optical signals and then multiplexes them into a single channel for 100Gb/s optical transmission along a single fiber. PSM4 and SR4 transceivers are not multiplexed and so require 4 parallel fibers, which are especially costly over distances of 2km to 10km.   Although completing separate designs for TX (transmit), RX (receive) and combination TX-RX optical engines (see accompanying link to TX-only graphic), POET intends to focus first on the TX design, which offers significant cost and performance advantages, and represents a fast go-to-market approach for the Company.