TOKYO -- Leading Optical Manufacturers Avanex Corp., Eudyna Devices Inc., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd., Opnext, Inc., Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., and TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc., today announced the release of new common specifications for long-reach optical devices based on a 10 Gbit/s Miniature Device Multi-Source Agreement (XMD-MSA). The XMD-MSA specifications are designed for applications from short-to-long reach transmission functions.

Specifications established by the XMD-MSA enables the use of optical devices from multiple suppliers. The XMD-MSA has been created to establish compatible sources of 10 Gbit/s Transmitter Optical Sub-Assembly (TOSA) and Receiver Optical Sub-Assembly (ROSA) devices embedded into the 10 Gbit/s small form factor pluggable (XFP) MSA modules. The XFP module has been designed for use in large capacity network and data storage systems. This XMD-MSA covers optical devices that comply with 10 Gbit/s interface standards, including 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Fiber Channel and SONET OC-192.

The newly available XMD-MSA specifications detail the semiconductor-based external modulator TOSA and Avalanche Photo-Diode Trans-Impedance Amplifier (APD-TIA) for long-reach (beyond 20 km) applications. XMD-MSA specifications now cover transmission applications for most optical networking systems.