SAN JOSE, Calif. & MUNICH, Germany, Feb. 1 -- Infineon Technologies, a leading provider of communications ICs and fiber optics components, is developing devices incorporating OC-192 Resilient Packet Ring technology. This technology is being standardized in the IEEE 802.17 committee and will extend Gigabit Ethernet into metropolitan and wide area networks, paving the way for Gigabit Ethernet metro services. The new devices will augment Infineon's recently announced 40Gbps high-speed framing, mapping and mux/demux line card solutions. Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) is gaining rapid momentum within the industry, said Infineon, and will play a critical role in offering service providers the ability to create high-speed metropolitan networks that transport voice and data traffic efficiently while lowering capital expense and ongoing operational expenses. RPR, a Layer Two media access control technology, significantly increases the bandwidth efficiency of service provider networks by using twice the capacity of traditional SONET/SDH rings. RPR delivers dynamic bandwidth management while preserving the same kind of protection and resiliency found in SONET/SDH networks.