Austrians Make PON Chips

SCHLOSS PREMSTAETTEN, Austria -- Anticipating the demand for high-speed communication in the access network, specialist chipmaker austriamicrosystems developed a new generation of electro-optical interface ICs for Passive Optical Networks (PON). The system's high bandwidth supports applications such as teleworking, video distribution and high speed data sharing, which cannot be served by copper xDSL solutions. The KEOPE (Key Electro-Optical Elements) chipset was implemented based on austriamicrosystems high speed and low power silicon-germanium fabrication process. KEOPE is a key component for advanced Burst Mode Transmitters and Receivers for PONs: In a PON an Optical Line Termination (OLT) at the core side of the network is shared by up to 32 Optical Network Units (ONUs) on the user side. Such systems use time division multiplexing, i.e. burst mode transmission, in the upstream. The light bursts received at the core have different amplitudes and timing, because they originate from many ONUs placed at different distances from the OLT. Therefore the signal thresholds and amplification levels must be changed very rapidly at the receiver. In austriamicrosystems advanced KEOPE chipset this capability has been achieved by integrating very fast and precise 11 bit digital-to-analog converters, which control transmission power, receiver thresholds and gain levels. The state-of-the-art receiver amplifier features an input current dynamic range of 67 dB. Austriamicrosystems