Agere Supplies Pumps, Processors

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- Agere Systems (NYSE: AGR.A, AGR.B), the world leader in communications components, today announced it was chosen as a major supplier of Raman pump modules by Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) for Lucent's LambdaXtreme(tm) Transport dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) system. Agere's Raman pump modules enable higher bit-rate transmissions, longer span lengths, reduced noise contribution and higher channel counts in long-haul optical networking systems.Agere is leveraging its expertise in developing pump lasers and passive optical components to provide Lucent with highly reliable andperformance-leading Raman pump modules. Raman is an optical amplification technique, originally developed at Lucent's Bell Labs, that can boost the strength of very high-speed communications signals traveling through optical fiber more effectively than other amplification techniques, thereby allowing longer distances between amplifying devices."Agere's modules will be an important component in the Lucent LambdaXtreme Transport system for enabling reliable transmissions at 10- and 40-gigabits-per-second," said Frank Galuppo, vice president, Optical Long Haul Solutions, Lucent Technologies. "Agere's Raman pump modules meet Lucent's stringent technical requirements for high-speed data transport."In a separate release:Agere Systems Inc. (NYSE: AGR.A - News, AGR.B - News), the world leader in communication components, today unveiled its second-generation PayloadPlus® network processor for high-performance deep-packet networking and communications applications. Called INP5, the new product is a completely programmable network processor capable of more functions, lower power consumption and system cost than any competitive solution in its class. It is targeted to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of multi-service edge platforms, Internet protocol (IP) routers, digital subscriber line access multiplexers (DSLAMs) and 2.5G and 3G wireless equipment.The industry's first single-chip network processor with full classification and traffic management functionality, the INP5 enables higher port density applications at line rates up to full-duplex OC-48c. With classification and traffic management logic, 2.5 MB of internal RAM and integrated Ethernet media access controllers (MACs), the INP5 can perform packet classification with per flow policing and statistics, buffer management and packet scheduling across 256k queues and extensive data modifications at full OC-48c line rates for any packet size."The INP5's combination of flexibility, functionality and performance allows for building robust applications with extremely rich feature sets at lower costs than before," said Mark Pinto, vice president of the processing, aggregation and switching division at Agere Systems. "As a pioneer in the network processor space, Agere is the market leader in OC-48 carrier applications. The INP5 represents the culmination of Agere's unwavering focus on system-level solutions that increase performance, functionality and speed time-to-market, while reducing costs, power consumption and footprint."Agere SystemsLucent Technologies Inc.