OTTAWA -- Bookham Technology plc (“Bookham”) (LSE: BHM; NASDAQ: BKHM), a leading provider of optical components, modules and subsystems, will launch at the 2004 European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC), the industry’s first integrated solution for optical receiver overload protection that meets ITU and IEEE standards GR-253-CORE and G.959.1. The integrated ATV10GC receiver is one-quarter of the size – and has half the electrical power consumption and about half the cost – of competing discrete devices, and is specifically designed for use by systems vendors within the widely used industry-standard 300-pin transponder package.

The new receiver is currently the only device of its kind available in the surface mount coplanar MSA form factor, with an integrated Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) Variable Optical Attenuator (VOA) to control the optical power reaching the Avalanche Photodiode (APD) optical receiver. The result is a complete receiver that is small and easy to use.

“Integration is the key because it gives you a combination of size and power consumption benefits that cannot be achieved by other means,” says Roger Harley, Bookham’s marketing director for discrete active components. “It provides the receiver with the ability to withstand high optical power levels, which has become absolutely crucial to system vendors now, given the ITU and IEEE standards for APD protection.

“The ATV10GC receiver is designed to withstand +10dBm overload, a +5dBm margin over the ITU requirement. The VOA also allows the optical signal to be adjusted dynamically to enable the receiver to always operate within its optimum range.”

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OXFORDSHIRE, U.K. -- Bookham Technology plc, (“Bookham”) (LSE: BHM; NASDAQ: BKHM), a leading provider of optical components, modules and subsystems, is to highlight its innovative indium phosphide Mach-Zehnder modulated laser (InP MZ) LMC10 at the 2004 European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) in Stockholm, Sweden.

On display for the first time in Europe, the LCM10 product range has been designed to meet present and future market requirements for regional metro applications, particularly where 10Gb/s is being overlayed on 2.5Gb/s legacy spans for increased capacity. Designed for 10Gb/s applications, the product employs a high power Continuous Wave (CW) laser co-packaged with an InP MZ modulator.

One of the key benefits of the product is its excellent optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) performance versus competitive Electro Absorption (EA) technology. Exceeding 80km for Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) applications at 10Gb/s is difficult for Commercial EA lasers. In contrast, Bookham’s InP MZ provides performance similar to Lithium Niobate modulators with reaches beyond 100km without any dispersion compensation, making it highly attractive for overlaying legacy 2.5Gb/s links. Unlike Lithium Niobate however, the unrivalled small footprint of the Bookham InP MZ allows it to be used in system shelves commonly employing directly modulated laser technology. This means metro bay density is not compromised.

“A key advantage to the LMC10 is its size, we have worked hard to meet our customers demands for more compact products,” said Adam Price, Bookham’s product line manager for the InP MZ portfolio. “Through a novel co-packaging technique we have created a package no bigger than a typical directly modulated laser. We believe that InP MZ development could help pave the way to smaller high performance optics.”

Bookham Technology plc