Researchers at Fujitsu Laboratory Ltd. in Richardson, Texas, a division of Fujitsu Network Communications Inc., have developed components that the company says will enable its 320-Gb/s Flashwave dense wavelength division multiplexing system to provide customers with transmission rates of 1.7 Tb/s.

An optical variable attenuator permits the parallel configuration of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, increasing the bandwidth to 170 channels of multiple wavelengths. SONET transmission of 10 Gb/s would yield a total capacity of 1.7 Tb/s.

Fujitsu designed Flashwave for public network service providers. The company claims that the tunable optical transmitters in the new system will reduce the need to maintain spare channel cards. Ron Martin, executive vice president of planning and development, said that the improvements demonstrate the company's long-range plans to increase capacity for global networking.