Passave Unveils GPON Chips

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Passave, Inc., a market leader in fiber to the home (FTTH) semiconductors for the broadband access network market, is introducing a pair of Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) devices, the PAS5211 optical line terminal (OLT) and the PAS6211 optical network terminal (ONT), that will deliver 2.5-gigabit-per-second bandwidth for GPON-compatible FTTH equipment. Using Passave's field-proven GigaPASS(TM) architecture, the two new products will provide interoperability for GPON central-office (CO) equipment and GPON customer premise equipment (CPE).

"This introduction is consistent with our goal of making low-cost FTTH broadly available," said Ariel Maislos, president of Passave, Inc. "We already have established our gigabit EPON (GE-PON) technology as a volume leader in Japan, today's leading high-volume FTTH market. These new devices will leverage our success in developing gigabit PON devices for emerging FTTH markets, such as North America, where service providers are in the process of evaluating ITU-compatible GPON as an FTTH deployment technology."

"Passave has extensive experience with the gigabit broadband access market, based on its success in Asia with EPON devices," said Danny Briere, CEO of TeleChoice, Inc., a telecommunications strategy consultancy that tracks the PON market closely. "You'll see that experience map to their GPON products."

Developing a low-cost, high-performance GPON FTTH semiconductor is a significant technical challenge because it requires single-chip integration of gigabit and faster point-to-multipoint Passive Optical Network (PON) transmission topologies at a price-point suitable for consumer premise equipment such as access modems. Passave's field-proven GigaPASS architecture delivers gigabit and higher transmission rates, provides wire speed protocol processing, and supports mixed-mode PON traffic.

"High-definition IPTV is the killer application driving demand for PON in North America," said Michael Howard, principal analyst and co-founder of Infonetics Research. "Multi-gigabit service enables carriers to simultaneously deliver IPTV, data, and voice to their customers. Passave was the first silicon supplier to deliver gigabit-line-rate devices for Passive Optical Network (PON) equipment in volume, with its GigaPASS-based GE-PON devices."

Passavé Technologies Inc.