Technological advances in communication and data transfer are increasingly visible all around us, in our homes, our workplaces and also in the organisations that we depend on. In the 21st century, our lives have become fully immersed in internet data through our use of smartphones, tablets, Internet-enabled Televisions, social media, online gaming, video calling, and cloud storage. New internet applications such as mobile video, Virtual Reality, and Internet of Things are emerging all the time. With our rapidly increasing use of Internet technology, ever-faster data networks are being rolled out, each wave driving even more data through optical fibre networks.
To boost network capacity, planners are moving to deploy as many as 40 streams of different coloured light through each fibre, each colour is a channel carrying its own data: a technology known as Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM). WDM has already been proven as the solution for increasing capacity at the core of the networks and has great potential to provide a vital solution at the edges of the network (where the connections between cloud-computing data centres and mobile phone towers are). However, the network edge solution must be cost-effective.
EFFECT Photonics (a spin-out from the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e) in the Netherlands), has developed the solution to this problem. Our unique Optical System-on-Chip technology allows the complete integration of multiple complex light functions into a single tiny chip, known as a Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC). Our PIC chips are capable of sending many coloured streams of light-data and can be assembled and packaged using our non-hermetic packaging technology, into a very compact module. This module is used to transmit and receive data along optical fibres and is known as a transceiver module. Our unique technology allows EFFECT Photonics to deliver the lowest cost and highest performance optical transceiver modules available today. These compact transceiver modules are industry standard size and can be plugged directly into the racks that sit within data centres, connecting those data centres to other data centres and the rest of the telecommunications network. This directly pluggable module is sold to complex system developers and Web2.0 companies.
The main objective of Project “RocketChip” was to develop and produce high-speed, tuneable, cost-efficient DWDM integrated optics, packaged in very compact modules to meet customer needs in several potential telecom applications.
RocketChip explored exploitation opportunities for single-mode optical fibre transmission of less than 40km, by pushing the limits of direct detect technology, and exploiting high-bit rate 4-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) at 1550nm. Project RocketChip, built on our existing knowledge and exploited our proprietary IP. Our extensive market research and customer interactions throughout the project, revealed that mobile front-haul applications would benefit the most from the project results.
The project has directly enabled EFFECT Photonics to develop a leadership position in the next generation of PICs and hence develop a strong, profitable and growing business in Europe.
