nfoec 2002 attendees recognize design achievements

Lightwave is pleased to recognize the winners of its annual Attendees' Choice Awards, held at the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC 2002) in Dallas in September. The awards are designed to provide a "grass roots" view of what's hot and what's not, and many NFOEC attendees took the time to tell us which products impressed them the most at the show. Look for additional Attendees' Choice Awards opportunities at the upcoming OFC 2003 in March.

VPIlinkConfigurator derives accurate cost and span engineering information for any optical link in the mesh network. The "expert" version of the tool captures parameters for real world components. Sophisticated algorithms quickly predict the limitations on systems performance for greenfield and brownfield fiber plants. A streamlined version of the same tool is then used by field engineers to verify that a given WDM system can be deployed between specified nodes, working with repeater hut locations, fiber types between huts, and the number of wavelengths and signal rates that need to be carried. VPIsystems Inc., Holmdel NJ

FiberMax performs high-volume manufacturing and testing of fiber-optic components in a highly automated, 24/7 production environment. It uses patent-pending direct-drive technology to achieve a high level of positioning performance. offers up to six axes of precise motion, 10-nm resolution X-Z axis, 2-nm resolution Y axis, 300-pm resolution with the Automation 3200 soft controller, 0.027-0.058-arc sec resolution on all rotary axes, and 32-axis turnkey drive and control electronics. Comes in a 224×150×206-mm package (six axes).Aerotech Inc. Pittsburgh

The VIT5208 tunable long-reach 10-Gbit/sec transponder can be tuned over eight consecutive 50-GHz wavelengths or four wavelengths at 100-GHz spacing, lowering inventory requirements. Instead of inventorying each line-card variety at all wavelengths, service providers can now use the transponder to reduce this requirement by a factor of eight. The transponder meets the 300-pin MSA standard, so it can be easily implemented in all MSA-compliant applications. Standard output power remains a robust 3 dBm.Vitesse, Camarillo, CA

The OPTX10A 1310/1550-nm standalone electrical-optical-transmitter source supporting 10-Gigabit Ethernet testing can be modulated with digital data rates of 50 Mbits/sec-11.4 Gbits/sec, while providing variable extinction ratio control. An internally switchable filter and AM input port support 802.3ae stressed eye generation. All features are accessible from the front panel or remotely (GPIB) in support of R&D and manufacturing test applications. JDS Uniphase Instrumentation, Ottawa, Ontario

The OMX optical transport switching system for the metro core network combines the functions of a wideband (DS-1/VT1.5), broadband (DS-3/STS-1), and super broadband (STS-N) digital-crossconnect system with SONET add/drop multiplexer transport capabilities—all managed under a Generalized MPLS-based common control plane. Based on a software-defined single switch-fabric architecture that can scale from gigabits to multiterabits, the switch natively grooms TDM while futureproofing the network to natively support cell- and packet-based traffic.Polaris Networks Inc., San Jose, CA

The Light Fixer dispersion compensation module (DCM) enables simultaneous 80-channel (100-GHz-channel-spacing) slope-compensated tunable dispersion compensation across the C- and L-bands with low group velocity delay ripple. It can be installed in existing networks to improve the performance of the existing fiber-cable span, thus enabling extremely low residual transmission errors at speeds up to 10 Gbits/sec. The etalon-based DCM offers low insertion loss and excellent slope compensation with a "Figure of Merit" better than 300. Compact size allows for mounting on a printed circuit board or external to the system.
Accumux Technologies, Camarillo, CA