Mitsubishi Electric's Tunable Dispersion Compensators Offer World's Best Optical Signal Recovery Performance for High-Speed, Long-Reach WDM Systems.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 10, 2002

The Electronic Device Group of Mitsubishi Electric & Electronics USA, Inc., today announced the availability of the world's most effective tunable dispersion compensators for countering the effects of signal degradation prevalent in high-speed, long-reach WDM(1) optical network systems. Designed for 40- and 10-Gbps(2) applications, the devices more than triple the dispersion tuning range of previous-generation products. They also enable optical network system designers to automatically adjust the dispersion compensation function for seasonal or daily temperature fluctuations in already-installed optical fiber. As a result, the devices drastically reduce required set-up and maintenance time and eliminate manual tuning of optical network systems.

"Mitsubishi Electric's dispersion compensators make it possible for optical system designers to quickly tune their systems just once at installation and adjust optical signals incrementally from a remote location as the weather changes," said Daniel Chen, assistant vice president of high-frequency products for Mitsubishi Electric & Electronics USA, Inc. "This eliminates the aggravation of manual tuning, saving customers a substantial amount of time and servicing costs."

Even though WDM optical transmission technology provides one of the best solutions available for increasing the speed of information over network systems that feed the Internet, chromatic dispersion(3) causes the signal to warp and spread out over long distances, thereby resulting in transmission errors. Using Mitsubishi Electric's FBG(4) technology and a temperature control mechanism, the FQ-40C dispersion compensator can tune the optical signal up to 350 ps/nm for 40-Gbps applications, and the FQ-10E device can tune up to 1,400 ps/nm for 10-Gbps applications. The devices also demonstrate low group delay ripple and low polarization mode dispersion for high optical signal quality and feature low insertion loss for high optical power efficiency.

Availability and Pricing

Samples of the FQ-40C and FQ-10E dispersion compensators will be available in January 2003, with volume production scheduled for the third quarter of 2003. Sample pricing for the FQ-40C and FQ-10E is $25,000 each and $16,700 each, respectively.

FQ-40C Specifications

-- Optical pass bandwidth: greater than/equal to 0.2 nm

-- Channel pass bandwidth (-1 dB): greater than/equal to 0.6 nm

-- Dispersion tuning range: greater than/equal to 350 ps/nm

-- Group delay ripple: less than/equal to +/- 2 ps

-- Insertion loss: less than/equal to 5 dB

-- Polarization mode dispersion: less than/equal to 0.5 ps

-- Power dissipation: 3 watts

FQ-10E Specifications

-- Optical pass bandwidth: greater than/equal to 0.2 nm

-- Channel pass bandwidth (-1 dB): greater than/equal to 0.3 nm

-- Dispersion tuning range: greater than/equal to 1,400 ps/nm

-- Group delay ripple: less than/equal to +/- 6 ps

-- Insertion loss: less than/equal to 4 dB

-- Polarization mode dispersion: less than/equal to 0.5 ps

-- Power dissipation: 3 watts

Definitions

(1) WDM -- Wavelength Division Multiplexing, which is an

information transmission method that adopts many wavelengths

as signal carriers in a single optical fiber.

(2) Gbps -- Gigabit per second

(3) Chromatic dispersion -- A phenomena in which optical signal

pulses spread after they travel through installed optical

fiber. This signal spreading occurs because the group velocity

depends upon the individual wavelengths.

(4) FBG -- Fiber Bragg Grating

About Mitsubishi Electric & Electronics USA, Inc.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation offers a diverse range of optoelectronic products for SDH, SONET, 10GbE, CWDM, DWDM, data communication, and OTDR applications, as well as passive optical network systems, test and instrumentation applications, and CATV distribution. The company's optoelectronic product families conform to leading-edge current and future multi-source agreements such as XENPAK, X2, and XFP. Mitsubishi Electric markets its optoelectronic products in North America through the Electronic Device Group of Mitsubishi Electric & Electronics USA, Inc.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and its North American affiliate, Mitsubishi Electric & Electronics USA, Inc., are world-class suppliers of semiconductors and electronic products for communications, industrial, Internet-enabled, automotive, and visual applications. Mitsubishi Electric combines its systems-level expertise and high-level silicon process technologies to provide chip, chipset, and system-on-chip solutions. The company is ranked among the top-tier worldwide semiconductor suppliers and offers an extensive range of semiconductor and computer system components for the North American marketplace, including microcontroller, ASSP, ASIC, flash, SRAM, DRAM, optoelectronic, and microwave/RF devices.

Additional information on the Mitsubishi Electric Semiconductor Group is available at http://www.mitsubishichips.com/.

Trademark Information

Mitsubishi and the Mitsubishi logo are registered trademarks of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation in the U.S.A., Japan, and other countries.

Keywords

Mitsubishi, optoelectronic, dispersion compensator, 40 Gbps, 40 Gb/s, 10 Gbps, 10 Gb/s.