ThreeFive Photonics announces fourfold performance increase of single-chip multiwavelength receiver
September 3, 2002 -- The Netherlands-based chipmaker ThreeFive Photonics today disclosed information about the second offering in its Argo multiwavelength receiver product family. The Argo A4D10 is an integrated multiwavelength receiver with 4 channels of 10-Gbit/sec capacity each. The new integrated multiwavelength receiver beats equivalent hybrid and discrete solutions in terms of footprint, pricing and ease of assembly, according to the company.
"We are very happy that we are ready to introduce our second product only six months after the first," says Wouter Deelman, chief executive officer of ThreeFive Photonics. "It demonstrates that we made the right choice when we decided to outsource the manufacturing of our chips. Our supply chain partners enable us to be as fast as we need to meet the demands of the market."
The Argo A4D10 is based on the design of the A4D2.5, announced earlier this year. It illustrates the product philosophy of ThreeFive Photonics, which aims at meeting the requirements of its customers by tuning generic solutions to their particular needs. The A4D10 multiwavelength receiver specifically addresses the demands of system integrators/OEMs needing to provide high-capacity interconnections in metropolitan networks, where space and power consumption are limiting factors. With 4 channels at 10 Gbits/sec, the new multiwavelength receiver realizes a fourfold capacity increase over its predecessor without requiring any additional space.
"At the higher bit rate of 10 Gbits/sec, crosstalk between the channels becomes the critical factor," says Chretien Herben, ThreeFive Photonics' chief technology officer. "We have made it a point to deal with that challenge by refining the design of the original 4-channel 2.5-Gbit/sec chip and package, completely in line with our product roadmap. While the A4D2.5 chip was packaged in a 14-pin butterfly package, A4D10 comes in a 26-pin package of the same dimensions with a coplanar RF [radio frequency] output. The fact that we have been able to realize a satisfying performance at 10 Gbits/sec proves that we are on track to our final goal: a complete telecommunication subsystem on a single chip."
The Argo A4D10 will be made available to selected customers for testing and evaluation in the first half of 2003. Samples of Argo are introduced at a competitive price that is equivalent to the volume price for the current market solution consisting of separate components. A preliminary data sheet for the chip can be found on the company's Web site(http://www.35ph.com/products/A4D10).
ThreeFive Photonics (Houten, The Netherlands) is a fabless developer and supplier of monolithically integrated optoelectronic chips for use in telecommunication networks. The company's products are based on indium phosphide, a compound of elements in columns "three" and "five" of the Periodic Table of the Elements. ThreeFive Photonics was established early in 2001 and is funded by venture capital companies Atlas Venture and Gilde IT Fund.