OFC/NFOEC 2008 TECHNICAL CONFERENCE: FEBRUARY 24-28,2008 EXPOSITION:FEBRUARY 6-28,2008-2-29    SAN DIEGO CONVENTION CENTER
                            SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, USA

     During the combined Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) and National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC) in San Diego, California USA at February 2008, the (appx.) 15,000 attendees saw evidence of continuing industry consolidations and a stabilizing revenue trend for optical communications products.

     For the Optics industry, no other week is as intense as the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) and the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC). Since 1985, the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) have provided an annual backdrop for the optical communications field to network and share research and innovations. In 2004, OFC joined forces with the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC) creating the largest and most comprehensive international event for optical communications. People come from all corners of the earth to meet and greet, teach and learn, make connections and move business forward for this one week each year. 2008 OFC/NFOEC exhibition hall started in San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, U.S.A. on February 26th 2008. 

    
 

     The OFC/NFOEC exhibit is one of the focal points of the entire conference, it is the most effective and efficient place to meet with vendors, connect with business partners, develop prospects and explore new business opportunities all in one place at one time. Exhibitors from around the world showcase their latest products to every sector of the industry during this spectacular three-day event.
 

     The activities in the exhibit hall provide networking opportunities and the business acumen of the fiber optics industry.  All events on the exhibit floor are free to the public. In FTTXx center (Hall E), live demonstrations and product displays, such as working fiber-optics systems, network design and mapping software, fiber termination and splicing, and cable preparation were showing to all guests. 

    

     Market watch was a featured session. This three-day series of panel sessions engaged the applications and business communities in the field of optical communications. Presentations and panel discussions feature esteemed guest speakers from industry, research, and the investment community. They addressed technology trends and business opportunities.

     In New Product Introductions Session, exhibitors were highlight newest developments, products and services in 30-minute showcase presentations on the exhibit floor.

     Poster sessions were presented in exhibit floor to provide an opportunity for selected papers to be presented in greater visual detail and should facilitate vivid discussions with attendees. For poster sessions, each author is provided a bulletin board on which to display a summary of the paper. Authors were remaining in the vicinity of the bulletin board for the duration of the session to answer questions. 
 

    

OSP/Fiber Technology Showcase was presented. This on-floor theater was feature special presentations and demonstrations on topics of interest in today's fiber optic technology. Topic highlights included:
 FTTx demonstrations and presentations
 Effects of coarse and dense wavelength division multiplexing on fiber optics communications
 Functional 100-km span measured for PMD and CD, and how they both apply to the future migration of systems for WDM and TDM upgrades
 Latest products and technology migration paths for service providers
 Review of common contaminants and how to safely inspect, identify and clean optical connectors in manufacturing and outside plant applications
 
    

     POF Market and Technical Opportunities Presentations were scheduled in this conference  The Plastic Optical Fiber Trade Organization (POFTO) organized POF Day to review the year’s new industry developments.  POF Day consisted of the Symposium on POF Applications, Technology and Products and a press conference. The POF Pavilion will be open throughout the show.  A key highlight of the symposium was a presentation on “POF and 100G.”  Other developments include Ethernet transceivers developed from MOST automotive technology, “connectorless ” links, review of new international POF standards, and progress in 10G over 100 meters of POF.
 
     Arastra announced a demonstration at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC). This demonstration can be seen at the Intel booth, and highlights wire-speed optical connectivity between the Arastra 7148S Datacenter Ethernet switch and Intel’s 10GbE NICs with SFP+ optical transceivers. 

      
 
     The demonstration consists of Intel Xeon based servers equipped with Intel 10GbE NICs connected to an Arastra 7148S 48-port 10GbE switch, fully populated with Intel’s 10GbE SFP+ 300m short reach (10GBASE-SR), 10 km long reach (10GBASE-LR) and 100m datacenter reach (10GBASE-SRL) optical transceivers. The new datacenter reach transceivers enable cost-effective connectivity of 10GbE devices over OM3 multimode fiber, while remaining interoperable with industry standard 10GBASE-SR optics.

     "With its wide range of options, leading price performance, and low power, SFP+ is becoming the interface of choice in the data center for server and switch 10GbE connections,” said Mansour Karam, Director of Marketing at Arastra. "We look forward to working with our partners on driving market adoption of SFP+ for 10 Gigabit networking." (Cited from Business Wire)
Avanex Corporation, a pioneering provider of intelligent photonic solutions enabling next-generation optical networks, announced today that it has started volume shipments of subsystems based on its Oasis digital control architecture.

     Avanex Modules and Subsystems General Manager Richard Smart said, “Our customers need to dramatically lower their costs and time-to-market. The software and firmware tools that we have developed for the digital control fabric of our Oasis amplifier are now being used to integrate and manage the optical functions of the regeneration and ROADM node in a cost effective manner. We’re moving away from extensive optical and electronic design into software configuration of platforms to meet customer specifications. Our ability to move the telecom design challenge into the software domain is giving a much shorter development cycle than has previously been achieved. We have already integrated performance monitoring and service channel transceiver functionality to our amplifiers and will move next to integrating tunable dispersion compensation and wavelength routing.”

     Avanex Senior Vice President of Sales Scott Parker commented, “Through Oasis, we deliver lower cost, compact, and theally-efficient products which allow our customers to increase the traffic capacity in their central offices efficiently. We are also very excited by the many new opportunities we are currently discussing where the capability of our digital architecture to cost-effectively integrate amplification, tunable dispersion compensation, wavelength routing and performance monitoring offer a compelling and differentiated solution.” (Cited from Business Wire)
The subsystem EDFA/OPM line card will be on display at Avanex Booth 1734, Hall C, along with the industry leading Oasis PureGain™1600, 2800 and 3000 EDFAs.

     The world’s first commercial source of individual photons (particles of light) using diamond based quantum technology has been developed by Quantum Communications Victoria (QCV) within the School of Physics at The University of Melbourne, Australia.

     The Single Photon Source was launched today. The technology uses the unique properties of diamond to produce single particles of light (photons) at room temperature on demand.

     The device which can be accessed with a standard optical fiber connection has the potential to be used for many applications including as a component in secure telecommunications systems, for quantum metrology and other quantum based applications.

     QCV is considering commercial partners and investors to participate in a start-up which will pursue commercialization of the Single Photon Source in various markets.

     The Australian based development team is collaborating with MagiQ Technologies, a Boston based supplier of Quantum encryption equipment to optimize the integration of the Single Photon Source into existing Quantum Cryptosystems, with testing and field trials the next step.

     Further work is being undertaken in investigating the various other applications for the QCV Single Photon Source including: other quantum applications, microscopy and optical sensing.

     QCV is supported by a State Government Infrastructure grant in Victoria, Australia and is the first group in the world to produce such a device.

     Hitachi, Ltd. and Opnext, Inc. today announced the first wide temperature range operation of 1310-nm 25Gbit/s EA-DFB lasers for 100Gbit Ethernet 10km single-mode fiber (SMF) application at OFC/NFOEC 2008.

     A study by the IEEE HSSG (High Speed Study Group) showed that by the year 2010, the bandwidth required in core networking will be best satisfied by 100Gbit/s interfaces. Furthermore, bandwidth needs are expected to double every eighteen months resulting in demand for multi-port 100Gbit/s systems. In the IEEE 802.3ba taskforce, a 10km SMF (single mode fiber) 100Gbit/s Ethernet specification is being discussed. For this application, 1310-nm four channels by 25Gbit/s WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) transmission is the most attractive technology. One of the technology challenges is to achieve 1310-nm 25Gbit/s WDM optical devices. CWDM (course wavelength division multiplexing) technology is expected to be the most cost effective solution due to the wide wavelength pitch that enables 100 percent of wavelength yield and less strict or no temperature control.

     Hitachi and Opnext have demonstrated EA-DFB lasers operating at 25Gbit/s with wavelengths of 1290-, 1310-, 1330- and 1350-nm. The 25Gbit/s operation was achieved using high speed device technology which has been already confirmed in 1550-nm 40Gbit/s EA-DFB lasers currently used commercially in 40Gbit/s transceivers. A wide temperature range operation from 0ºC to 85ºC was also reported. This was achieved using advanced aluminum-based material system in the EA (electro-absorption) modulator section. This semiconductor material system has a temperature tolerant band-gap structure which decreases the temperature dependent performance of the modulator.

     These EA-DFB (electro-absorption modulator with integrated distributed feedback laser) lasers demonstrate the technical feasibility of the CWDM grid which achieves low cost 100Gbit/s optical transceiver modules with low power consumption and compact size which is expected to accelerate the adoption of 100Gbit/s interfaces in the network.

     OFC& NFOEC conference exhibition hall was closed successfully on 28th February 2008. At conference, the most impressed thing was the “Asia Trends”; lots of company came from China, Japan or Korea. It was found that people have great interest in the market opportunities in China and Japan. There are good reasons for that, Asia’s optical & telecom market demand keeps growing... We are expecting more exciting and breaking news will be reported in OFC& NFOEC 2009!