The first commercial large-scale InP photonic integrated circuits: current status and performance

Summary form only given. Infinera has commercialized the first digital transport network (DTN) systems as a highly reliable, small footprint system to the telecommunications carriers. The key technology in the DTN is optical-electrical-optical (O-E-O) digital signal processing. O-E-O processing allows the carriers to install systems at more locations, which translates into more entry points into the network. The photonic integrated circuit, or PIC, enables cost-effective O-E-O processing. While research had been ongoing for several decades, Infinera systems are the first to incorporate large-scale photonic integration. Infinera´s commercially deployed PICs operate at 100 Gb/s on 10 channels (10Gb/s per channel). Each transmit PIC channel consists of a tunable DFB, modulator, power monitor and variable optical attenuator (VOA). The PIC has been deployed worldwide, demonstrating an excellent reliability track-record. The challenges met in commercializing this chip, including the tradeoff between performance, reliability, and a robust processing methodology, will be discussed as well the latest development results, wherein we have demonstrated transmitter chips integrating over 240 elements with a aggregate capacity of 1.6 Tb/s.