Lafite's Blog

An Overview of WDM WDM stands for Wavelength Division Multiplexing. WDM is the most important and most popular method to increase the capacity of a single strand of fiber.   Traditionally, only one colored light was used on a single strand of fiber to carry the information, such as 1550nm light. However, starting from the early 1990s, the Internet boom pushed service providers to find a method to increase the capacity on their network in the most economical way. That is when WDM devices were invented. In a WDM system, many different colored lights are combined by a WDM multiplexing device and put into a single strand of fiber, each color is called a channel. On the receiver side, each color is separated into its own channel by a WDM de-multiplexing device. It shows that a single fiber's capacity is increased by 40 times with a 40 channel WDM. The beauty of WDM is that you only need to upgrade the end equipment, no need to dig up trenches to bury more fibers, which is mu...

What Is Wavelength-tunable Optical Transceiver? Tunable optical transceivers are similar in operation and appearance to fixed transceivers, however, they have the added capability of allowing you to set the channel (or color) of the emitting laser. This reduces the need to have multiple devices that each operates at fixed wavelengths installed within a network. Instead, you have one transceiver that can be tuned according to the requirements of the operator. Tunable transceivers are only available in DWDM form, because of the format of the dense wavelength grid. Typical tunable optics are designed for the C-Band 50GHz. They support approximately 88 channels which are set with a 0.4nm interval. They usually start from channel 16 and go up to 61, but this is dependent on the manufacturer of the router or switch and which channels it supports. Tunable optical transceivers for DWDM systems have been widely available within the telecommunications industry for many years.  ...

South Korea has been seeking to become the world’s first country to provide commercial service for the 5G network. There are three companies that agreed to bring 5G to South Korea: SK Telecom (SKT), KT, and LG Uplus. Three Companies Offer 5G in South Korea SKT(SK Telecom) SKT 5G access is available for a manufacturing business in Ansan called Myunghwa Industry. The company also schedules to provide 5G to enterprise customers in Daejeon, Incheon, Daegu, Ulsan, Busan, and Gwangju. In 2017, with an outdoor 5G trial in Seoul, and shortly after built out 5G technology in their autonomous driving city called K-City. In 2018, their 5G test network enabled two cars to communicate with each other. And in early 2019, they made their first live 5G TV broadcast. This 5G rollout will mark the end of their 2G services. SKT is also part of a 5G smart factory alliance with over a dozen other companies. Announced in late 2018, the alliance was formed for two reasons: to investigate...

With the development of the optical communication industry and the improvement of the technology, the demand for bandwidth is increasing, the communication equipment manufacturers and operators will increase their investment in the optical communication network and equipment, thus driving the development of the optical module industry. The global optical module market keeps steady growth. According to Ovum's market share report, the communications market share is expected to grow in 2021. The global market for optical communications reached the US $10.1 billion in 2017 and has been growing rapidly. The market is expected to reach the US $16.6 billion by 2020, with a projected compound growth rate of 18 percent over the next three years. The development of optical communication technology cannot be separated from the milestone breakthrough of optoelectronic device technology. In the 1970s, the emergence of the semiconductor laser and low loss optical fiber unlock the doors of...

Time to enter 2019, when 400G has become a hot topic in the optical communications industry, the world's leading optical transceiver manufacturers have launched their own 400G optical modules. When we list the form-factors of these manufacturers' 400G optical modules (as shown in the figure below), we found that all the manufacturers except the Finisar (acquired by II-VI) have adopted the QSFP-DD form-factor — the market seems to have recognized QSFP-DD as the first choice for form-factors of 400G optical modules, though some manufacturers have also introduced 400G optical modules with OSFP and CFP8 form-factors. 400G Form-factors of Mainstream Optical Transceivers Manufacturers Tips:  QSFP-DD is a high-speed pluggable module form-factor defined by the QSFP-DD MSA group. "The QSFP-DD MSA group has defined the next generation, high-density, high-speed pluggable module form factor that addresses the industry need for high-density, high-speed networking solution...