Phyworks Claims Chip First

BRISTOL, U.K. -- Phyworks Ltd, a fabless semiconductor company developing innovative electronic solutions to overcome signal degradation on optical fibres, today announced that it has begun to ship samples of its PHY1060 Electronic Dispersion Compensation (EDC) integrated circuit (IC) to customers for evaluation.

The market's first 10Gbps device to integrate EDC with a high sensitivity Postamplifier and a Clock Recovery Unit (CRU), this innovation - freeEDC(tm) - allows Phyworks to offer EDC at no additional cost over existing receiver solutions. Phyworks' EDC enables extended serial 10Gbps transmission over Multi-mode Fiber (MMF) infrastructure, including the upgrade from 1Gbps of the installed base of FDDI-grade legacy fiber currently installed in most LAN networks.

The EDC IC, currently being sampled to select customers, enables a true 'plug and play' solution without demanding additional module space, power and cost, or requiring additional system performance. Phyworks' unique technology is helping to drive the reduction in cost of optical modules by as much as a factor of 10 from only a few years ago, thus establishing a competitive price point with lower data rates. In addition, this single-solution IC also enables the choice of reach extension or the use of lower cost optics in Single Mode Fiber (SMF) applications.

Designed in standard 0.13?m CMOS technology and packaged in a 5x5mm PBGA, the chip combines proprietary freeEDC(tm) circuitry and automatic time-adaptive algorithms to correct Intersymbol Interference (ISI) sources in MMF and SMF, including Chromatic, Polarization and Differential Mode Dispersion. The device is the power, size and cost effective EDC solution for small-form factor optical modules such as XFP, X2 and XENPAK, and enables Enterprise customers to upgrade existing 1Gbps links to 10Gbps.

"This chip is the culmination of collaboration with the leading manufacturers of 10Gbps optical modules and systems," said Stephen King, Phyworks' CEO. "Competitors have made significant compromises in their designs such as not incorporating a CRU. This leads to an EDC IC that will open an eye vertically, but will most likely result in horizontal eye closure, or "jitter". This results from the inherent properties of multi-mode fiber and is addressed by Phyworks' integrated approach to EDC and re-timing. EDC without integrated re-timing burdens components further downstream in the system.

We're delighted with the response we've had from customers and collaborators alike with our new EDC IC. 2004 is shaping up to be a great year for the company - we already have firm bookings for almost US$2 million worth of our products."

Phyworks Ltd.