Month: June 2013

Mellanox Acquired Danish Optical Interconnect Component IPtronics

Following the announcement of acquisition of silicon photonics manufacturer Kotura two weeks ago, the storage network vendors Mellanox Technologies Ltd. recently announced that the company will acquire a Danish private IPtronics A / S, reflecting determination of them enhancing the light transmission capability. Mellanox will spend $ 47.5 million in cash for the acquisition. IPtronics A / S is the industry’s well-known application of parallel optical transmitter and receiver technology developers. Board of Directors of Mellanox and IPtronics has approved the details of the transaction, Mellanox is expected in the second half to complete the transaction.

IPtronics provides multi-channel vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) driver, modulator drivers and transimpenndance amplifier. Mellanox’s platform is already in use of IPtronics products. The same with the acquisition of Kotura, Mellanox said that IPtronics products are embedded in its current solutions, and that the acquisition enhances its ability to deliver complete end-to-end optical interconnect solutions at 100-Gbps and higher speeds to meet the growing demands of applications used in high-performance, Web 2.0, cloud, data center, database, financial services and storage environments.

The proposed acquisition of IPtronics is highly complementary with our recently proposed acquisition of Kotura. IPtronics’ parallel optical interconnect ICs further solidify our strategy to have a full end-to-end solution for the server and storage interconnect,” said Mellanox president and CEO Eyal Waldman.

Mellanox plants to establish its first R&D center in Europe at IPtronics’ premises in Roskide, Denmark, and further expan its customer support presence in Europe. It will keep IPtronics’ existing product lines to ensure continuity for customers and partners.

“We are very pleased to joint the Mellanox team and look forward to working together to further push forward the development of the combined company” said IPronics A / S co-founder and CEO Niels Finseth.

Published by FiberStore, business news – www.fiberstore.com

on June 5, 2013

Common Passive Fiber Optical Splitters

Fiber optical splitter, also named fiber optic coupler or beam splitter, is a device that can distribute the optical signal (or power) from one fiber among two or more fibers. Fiber optic splitter is different from WDM(Wavelength Division Multiplexing) technology. WDM can divide the different wavelength fiber optic light into different channels, but fiber optic splitter divide the light power and send it to different channels.

Work Theory Of Optical Splitters

The Optical Splitters “split” the input optical signal received by it between two optical outputs, simultaneously, in a pre-specified ratio 90:10 or 80:20. The most common type of fiber-optic splitter splits the output evenly, with half the signal going to one leg of the output and half going to the other. It is possible to get splitters that use a different split ratio, putting a larger amount of the signal to one side of the splitter than the other. Splitters are identified with a number that represents the signal division, such as 50/50 if the split is even, or 80/20 if 80% of the signal goes to one side and only 20% to the other.

Some types of the fiber-optic splitter are actually able to work in either direction. This means that if the device is installed in one way, it acts as a splitter and divides the incoming signal into two parts, sending out two separate outputs. If it is installed in reverse, it acts as a coupler, taking two incoming signals and combing them into a single output. Not every fiber-optic splitter can be used this way, but those that can are labeled as reversible or as coupler/splitters.

Attenuation Of Fiber Optic Splitter

An interesting fact is that attenuation of light through an optical splitter is symmetrical. It is identical in both directions. Whether a splitter is combining light in the upstream direction or dividing light in the downstream direction, it still introduces the same attenuation to an optical input signal (a little more than 3 dB for each 1:2 split). Fiber optic splitters attenuate the signal much more than a fiber optic connector or splice because the input signal is divided among the output ports. For example, with a 1 X 2 fiber optic coupler, each output is less than one-half the power of the input signal (over a 3 dB loss).

Passive And Active Splitters

Fiber optic splitters can be divided into active and passive devices. The difference between active and passive couplers is that a passive coupler redistributes the optical signal without optical-to-electrical conversion. Active couplers are electronic devices that split or combine the signal electrically and use fiber optic detectors and sources for input and output.

Passive splitters play an important position in Fiber to the Home (FTTH) networks by permitting a single PON (Passive Optical Network) network interface to be shared amongst many subscribers. Splitters include no electronics and use no power. They’re the community parts that put the passive in Passive Optical Network and are available in a wide range of break up ratios, including 1:8, 1:16, and 1:32.

Optical splitters are available in configurations from 1×2 to 1×64, such as 1:8, 1:16, and 1:32. There are two basic technologies for building passive optical network splitters: Fused Biconical Taper (FBT) and Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC). FBT Coupler is the older technology and generally introduces more loss than the newer PLC Splitter.

Google Fiber is Aiming to Breakout the U.S Telecommunication Duopoly Market

Google Fiber is Aiming to Breakout the U.S Telecommunication Duopoly Market FiberStore News, According to the foreign media reports, since its inception, Google Fiberis basically regarded as an experiment in the industry, aiming to highlight the poor performance of the network service providers to promote high-speed broadband services, which is also test platform of next generation of advertising and video technology. Google has been working to correct this stereotypes of people, and repeatedly stressed that it is their serious business to carry out, even if there are indications that they would never in a nationwide promotion of Google Fiber (only a handful of cities deployment)

Media reports fully proved Google is by trying to get people to think more seriously about Google’s fiber optic network project to get it regarded as a major broadband company, although not always the case. Technology News clearly states: This network was initially seen as what the Internet giant used to test its news services and advertising model as an experiment network. Others also would like to know if Google network is just is a mean to promote the existing cable TV and phone companies to provide faster Internet service. Obviously, it was agreed that Google as a rich and powerful technology giant is affordable with this project and simply credited the cost as research and development expenditures.
The reason of Google fiber networks impress on peoples in this way is because that is the truth. This makes Google recently announced the entry into Austin and Prove does not really change that. Google Fiber is an amazing little experiment, although it may ultimately have a huge impact, it is till a long time for it to get rid of “the interesting experiment” (in issues on the U.S market capacity background and connectively)
It is not important that how we call it. Google Fiber MiloMeldin (formerly known as @Home) participate in the association meeting on FTTH in North America this week, and reiterated Google fiber network is a serious money-making initiatives. During the meeting, other than repeatedly requesting for subsidies, deregulation or complaining the poor service (just like the attitude of telecommunication industry’s mobile operators towards the large carries), Google in turns insisted that the earnings of working with the local government is rather abundance.
To be specifically, Google requires Kansas City as the assigned inspector for the Google Fiber project construction to enable speedy completion of the city’s periodic inspection, which will further saves the time and money that Google invest I the construction phase. This company also requires deploy fiber in other cities’ piping, and minimizing the unnecessary street excavation projects. The company has cooperated with the public utility companies to get the supported base station location for connections of the new fiber optic network.
Despite all these sound very good, but as of now, Google has not disclosed any convincing financial data, and Google Fiber has not yet been deployed on a large scale in families except a few part families. Although it is welcomed that Google Fiber intended to break the duopoly U.S telecommunication market, it is still a long way to go if it let people to see it as a real player in the market and a truly disruptive market forces.

Cisco Leads 100G Ethernet Switch Market

In first quarter of 2013, the worldwide Ethernet switch market was $ 4.7 billion, decreased by 8% compared with 2012Q4, but an increase of 1%. 40G is the only port shipment growth products, an increase of 2%, which was mainly due to 40G fixed switches (such as 16xQSFP+) and chassis-based switches 40G line cards. Cisco is the early leader in 100G Ethernet switch port.

Due to the influence of seasonal factors, in first quarter of 2013, the Ethernet switch sales fell, but the past three quarters, the overall is still increased, taking into account the continued weakness in Europe and the U.S. federal government expense decreased , this is a positive signal.

In first quarter of 2013, port shipments fell 4%. 10G, which is generally considered as a star product, the chain fell highest.

40G is the only port shipment growth products, an increase of 2%, which was mainly due to 40G fixed switches (such as 16xQSFP +) and chassis-based switches 40G line cards.

Almost all of the Ethernet switch equipment manufacturers on a quarter-on-quarter drop.

Cisco is the early leader in 100G Ethernet switch port.