NICE, France -- Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today unveiled a 200G photonic integrated device (PID) for case-shaped metro WDM equipment at Next Generation Optical Networking Forum, the most important optical conference in Europe. This device will help accelerate "WDM/OTN to the edge" deployments.

Future backbone pipes will be Pacific-wide, and the transmission capacity of metropolitan networks should expand accordingly to effectively "offload" tremendous traffic from the backbone. This means that "WDM/OTN to the edge" is inevitable. However, traditional case-shaped WDM equipment used at the network edge is unable to provide the required ultra-large capacity. Additionally, the planning and configuration of analog WDM signals is complex, which impedes mass deployment of edge WDM equipment.

Photonic integration technology allows the integration of opto-electronic components of a WDM system such as lasers, modulators, detectors, multiplexers, and de-multiplexers into a centimeter-sized PID chip. The highly integrated chip can deliver higher capacity without the need for connecting a large number of pigtails between boards, and spares the heavy workload of planning and configuring parameters such as optical power, dispersion compensation, and signal-to-noise ratio. This empowers the plug-and-play feature on edge WDM equipment, greatly reducing deployment and maintenance costs and facilitating the "WDM/OTN to the edge" evolution. The PID solution is currently available for Huawei's case-shaped WDM equipment OSN 1800 V and can deliver 200 Gbit/s per fiber. Huawei is also working on a 400G PID solution.

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.