Genoa Begins Commercial Shipments of Linear Optical Amplifier; Use of World's First Single-chip LOA Well Underway at Start-ups, Major Systems Suppliers.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 27, 2002

Genoa Corporation, an optical semiconductor company in Fremont, CA, announced that it has begun commercial shipments of its linear optical amplifier (LOA). Genoa's invention of the LOA, the first chip-based amplifier suitable for use in today's multi-wavelength optical networks, was first disclosed last year.

"This is a significant milestone for the optical communications industry," stated Daryl Inniss, senior analyst with telecommunications research firm RHK (South San Francisco, CA). "With the ready availability of an optical amplifier that shares the cost-structure, potential for integration, mass production, and the legendary scalability of the semiconductor industry, both the economics and the structure of future optical networks will change dramatically."

According to Rick Gold, president and CEO of Genoa, the LOA's potential has led to significant interest throughout the network community. "Our pre-production activity was unusually strong, in spite of the recent correction in the network market," said Gold. "LOAs have been sampled by companies around the world, from the `name' telecommunications giants, to aggressive start-ups hoping to skip a generation of equipment." According to Gold, the LOA has not only already been designed into next-generation network products, but into applications that "even we did not anticipate."

An Antidote for Loss

It's easy to understand this activity level, said Gold. "As new applications appear that shift processing to the optical layer of the network, they invariably become a new source of signal loss. The only antidote is gain, and the only source of gain is an optical amplifier." What then becomes the issue is power, packaging, and price. "You want the gain to be right there, wherever you are generating loss, integrated right into the guts of the optics, with tiny gain building blocks, just like it is done in electronics." This, of course, argues for a chip.

Traditionally, optical amplifiers, such as EDFA's (erbium doped fiber amplifiers), have only been used to boost the strength of light-based communications signals traveling down long optical fibers, typically between cities. The amplifiers used in this application are complex electronics modules, often costing between $15,000 and $50,000 each, that are about the size of a videocassette. Because of their great expense and awkward form factor, the incidence of such amplifiers, in relationship to the millions of miles of optical fiber in use, is very low -- roughly one amplifier for every 50 miles of fiber.

By contrast, Genoa's linear optical amplifier -- before packaging barely visible to the naked eye -- is a chip, making it possible to use dozens, even hundreds, in a single piece of network equipment, as designers re-think the architecture of both the network and its components.

Today, the LOA is being used for applications in receiver pre-amplifiers, lossless modules, inline and tributary amplifiers, and transmitter boost stages. "Designers see the LOA as a key to cost reduction," said Gold.

Additionally, engineers at Genoa's customers are already thinking "outside the box." Just as the transistor ended up being far more than just an amplifier, the LOA was conceived to be much more, as well. Gold indicated that interesting, non-amplifier applications for the LOA, such as all-optical wavelength conversion, are being developed today.

The G111 Linear Optical Amplifier

Genoa's first commercial optical amplifier has been designated the G111 Linear Optical Amplifier. It provides full C-band coverage and operates up to and beyond 40Gbps in a full DWDM environment. The flat gain spectrum of the G111 provides faithful amplification in the multi-wavelength environment, without recourse to gain-flattening filters, and makes the LOA immune to transients in protection switching or add-drop applications.

The LOA is available in a standard 14-pin butterfly package, suitable for integration into any line card in applications ranging from metropolitan and regional networks, SONET/SDH and IP systems, and optical networking nodes.

About Genoa Corporation

Genoa is an optical semiconductor company that has invented the world's first single-chip linear optical amplifier. Genoa's disruptive LOA technology is expected to have a significant impact on the economics of the optical communications industry by permitting levels of system integration previously enjoyed only by purely electronic products. Genoa's first LOA products -- introduced in 2001 and now shipping in commercial quantities -- are well-behaved, broad-spectrum amplifiers optimized for use in metropolitan optical network applications.

The company, with 130+ employees, has research, development, wafer fabrication and manufacturing facilities at its Fremont, CA, headquarters, and in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Funding to date is approximately $95 million; investors include August Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Global Crossing Ltd, Investor Growth Capital, Levensohn Capital, Meritech Capital Partners, Oak Investment Partners, and WorldCom Ventures. Genoa was founded in 1998 by leaders in semiconductor lasers and optical amplifiers.

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