Lightwave Editorial Director Stephen Hardy revealed the highest scoring entries in 10 product categories as 2018 Innovation Reviews Winners during a reception held on the second day of OFC 2018 in San Diego, CA. The event marked the first time in the program’s five-year history that Lightwave named the top scoring entry in each category a 2018 Lightwave Innovation Reviews Winner!
The Innovation Reviews is an optical communications technology recognition program. As was the case in previous years, technology developers were invited to submit products in various technology categories for review and for scoring by our independent panel of judges in time for OFC.
Lightwave’s Hardy, in his role as Award Program Manager, assigned each entry to be reviewed by judges knowledgeable in the relevant technology or application. Three judges then rated each entry on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the product's originality, usefulness, and differentiation from similar products. The Finalists in each category were announced in February (see "2018 Lightwave Innovation Reviews Finalists").
In the past, products that received a score of at least 3.5 were awarded Elite Score status, and this achievement was recognized on the website (see, for example, "2017 Lightwave Innovation Reviews Elite Scores"). This year, products with a 3.5 score were named Finalists.
Rather than release those scores and congratulate those who achieved Elite Score status as Lightwave has done in the past, scores were kept secret, and Winners were announced at a reception during OFC. Winners in each category received a trophy commissioned specifically for the program.
Lightwave salutes this year's participants for submitting their products for review, and congratulates the following winners:
Carrier Fiber, Cable, Enclosures and Accessories
Go!Foton Corp. PEACOC HD FIber Platform for Port Monitoring Applications
Data Center Fiber, Cable, Enclosures and Accessories
Nexans Data Center Solutions ENSPACE System
Data Center Interconnect Platforms
InPhi Corp. Polaris 16-nm PAM4 DSP PHY Product Family
Field Test Equipment
Ixia Solutions Group, A Keysight Business, K400 QSFP-DD-400GE Load Module
VIAVI Solutions FiberChek Sidewinder
FTTx Products
ADTRAN Gigabit Gfast with GTTB Model
Lab/Production Test Equipment
EXFO FTBx-88400NGE Power Blazer 400G Multiservice Test Solution
Optical Components
Senko Advanced Components CS Connector
Optical Subsystems
ECI Telecom Apollo TM200EN Per-Service Encryption Card
Lumentum TrueFlex® Nano 1x9 Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS)
Optical Transceivers and Transponders
Finisar 10G Tunable BiDi SFP+ Transceiver with T2DOC™ Technology
Optical Transport Systems
Lightwave's staff played no role in the judging of the submitted products. Participating companies were informed that the judges who reviewed their entries would remain anonymous.