CST Announces EU Data Transmission Feasibility

Semiconductor technology developer CST Global Ltd. has displayed the feasibility of multi-Gb data transmission at a 1270-nm carrier wavelength as part of a European Union’s Horizon 2020 research project.

The Innovative ultra-BROadband ubiquitous Wireless communications through terahertz transceivers (iBROW) project is led by the University of Glasgow and managed within CST Global by research engineer Horacio Cantu.

“The objective of the iBROW project is to establish the best millimeter-wave (mmWave), baseband radio over fiber (ROF) ultra-broadband solution,” Cantu said. “The performance characteristics of 1270-nm, detuned, in-plane, ridge waveguide, distributed feedback laser diodes demonstrated [that] it is an ideal, ROF carrier wavelength. We previously showed that 1310 nm was an effective, transmission wavelength. We are confident that this new technology will also be feasible at 1550 nm, which will deliver an ultra-broadband, low-latency solution, extending transmission distances up to 25 km.”

ROF requires light to be modulated with radio data for optical transmission. It offers a bandwidth increase over existing solutions and requires no digital-to-analog conversion, resulting in a low-latency solution.

“More development is needed to establish a commercial, ultra-broadband, ROF solution that is low-cost, energy-efficient, compact, operates at room temperature, and integrates with 5-G, fiber-optic network requirements,” Cantu said.