Bookham Plans 10Gb/s Module

Bookham Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of optical components, modules and subsystems, announced today it is developing a full-band, 10-Gb/s, long-reach, tunable pluggable transceiver that will be available in the first half of 2008.

The product will combine the company’s indium phosphide (InP) DS-DBR (digital supermode-distributed Bragg reflector) tunable laser and Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulator with an avalanche photodiode receiver in a pluggable Super X2 format. Bookham made the announcement at ECOC 2007, the 33rd European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communication exhibition and conference, being held this week in Berlin, Germany. The company said the transceiver will offer "all of the existing benefits of tunability combined with the pay-as-you-grow convenience of a hot-pluggable module."

Jon White, product line manager of Bookham's InP MZ and tunable portfolio, said, “The industry has long recognised the advantages of tunable technology and the flexibility of front-panel pluggable modules; this new product will combine both benefits. Our ownership of the core InP chip technology and our heritage in MZ modulators, monolithic tunable lasers and pluggable optics means that we are well positioned to make the tunable pluggable ideal a workable, reliable reality."

White said the company is also developed tunable TOSA (transmit optical subassembly) components that will enable further size reduction.

Bookham is exhibiting products including its dense wavelength division multiplexing, small form-factor pluggable transceiver, at Booth 17049 at ECOC. Bookham's chief engineer, Robert Keys, will discuss the emergence of electro-optic devices to drive network capacity growth as part of a Market Focus seminars, Tuesday at noon in the Market Focus arena.\

For more information, visit: www.bookham.com