Archive

2006 Workshops

OFC/NFOEC workshops provide opportunities to discuss and debate the latest technologies. Many workshops will be highly interactive, among both the speakers and the audience. The format of each session is determined by the organizers. In the past, many workshops have consisted of a series of short, contributed presentations (5 to 10 minutes) from people involved in the field followed by a panel discussion driven by questions from the audience.  

The 2006 conference featured workshops in current areas of interest in OFC and NFOEC categories alike. Details on all workshops are listed below.

View available workshop presentations here.

OFC Workshops

OMD - Comparing Conventional and Microstructured Optical Fibers
Organizers:John Fini, OFS Labs, USA fini@ofsoptics.com
Tanya Monro, Univ. of Adelaide, Australia tanya.monro@adelaide.edu.au

Microstructured optical fibers have captured the interest of the optics community because of their unique properties and their potential use in a wide variety of applications. This field is rapidly maturing and it is now timely to consider the following important questions for each application:

• How do the unique properties of microstructure fibers address the relevant requirements or performance tradeoffs of the application?
• Are conventional fibers or waveguides able to provide equivalent function to the proposed microstructure designs?
• Do microstructured waveguides provide qualitatively new functionality or advantages in the detailed system performance?

This workshop will explore the role that unique microstructure fiber capabilities can play in three the key application areas:

Three invited speakers and a panel of 3 experts have been selected for each application area. The role of the panel is to engage in and stimulate discussion of the questions listed above with the speakers and the audience. Both the invited speakers and panellists are leaders in their field chosen to provide good coverage of the application area.

View full category A program

B. Amplifiers and Lasers: Fiber or Waveguide

OMB - The Future of SOAs
Organizers: Juerg Leuthold, Univ. of Karlsruhe, Germany Contact Dr. Leuthold
Niloy K. Dutta, Univ. of Connecticut, USA nkd@phys.uconn.edu
View a detailed description.

Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOAs) have been a topic of intense research for over twenty years. Although SOAs have lower saturation powers than fiber amplifiers, they are most unique because they cover the whole spectral range from 1300 to 1600 nm with sufficient gain for most access and medium-haul applications. A recent router introduced by startup Infinera clearly exploits SOAs not only to boost signal power but also demonstrates the benefit from the monolithic integration of SOAs with other InP based devices. The high nonlinearity of SOA is most unique among all known optical materials – it has led to the development of a new class of commercially available nonlinear all-optical products.

This includes wavelength converters and optical clock recoveries and soon might include optical high-speed demultiplexers and many other all-optical processing applications in view of label swapping, optical header recognition and optical switching applications. Recently, SOAs have found new applications for FTTx and non-telecommunications fields, which has triggered a new interest in the technology.

After a short introduction on the theory and concepts behind SOAs including new materials such as Quantum Dots, we will discuss recent trends in industries and highlight new applications not only in the field of telecommunications but also in the field of medicine and related fields.

Invited Speakers include:
K. Morito, Fujitsu Labs Ltd., Japan
B. Sartorius, HHI, Germany
D. Bimberg, Tech. Univ. of Berlin, Germany
L. Zhang, Lucent Tech., USA
L. Tongnin LI, INPHENIX, USA
S. Tsdaka, Kailight Israel
B. Stefanov, Alphion Corp., Director of Product Development, USA
T. A. Fujitsu, Optical Semiconductor Device Res. Lab, Fujitsu Labs Ltd., Japan
J. Zyskind, Optovia, USA
P. Heim, Vice President of Advanced Technology, COVEGA Corp., USA
A. Poustie, CIP, UK

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C. Signal Measurement, Distortion Compensating Devices and Sensors

OMA - Optical vs. Electrical Approaches to Compensation of Signal Degradations in High Speed Optical Networks
Organizers: Kim Roberts, Nortel Networks, Canada krob@nortel.com
Paul Westbrook, OFS Labs, USA westbrook@ofsoptics.com

Optical signal compensation, most importantly dispersion compensating fiber, has enabled today’s high speed 10Gbit/s networks. Much research has also been devoted to 40Gbit/s optical compensation technologies, such as tunable dispersion compensators, PMD compensators and even optical equalizers. However, at lower bit rates, particularly in wireless communication, electrical compensation of signal degradations is well established. With advances in high speed electronics, these methods are now being tested in 10G and even 40G optical communication systems and recent laboratory demonstrations have shown that electrical precompensation may enable even long haul 10G transmission without any optical dispersion compensation.

How far can electronic approaches go in high speed optical networks to replace or coexist with optical technologies? Our workshop will examine this issue with participation from electrical and optical component vendors and system designers.

Invited Speakers include:
Martin Birk, AT&T Res. Labs, USA
M. Bohn, Siemens, Germany
Hans Damsgaard, OFS Fitel Denmark I/S, Denmark
Rene-Jean Essiambre and Peter Winzer, Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs, USA
Chris Fludger, CoreOptics, UK
Martin Guy, TeraXion, Inc., Canada
Kim Roberts, Nortel Networks Ltd., Canada
Ross Saunders, Stratalight, USA
Dave Weidman, Avanex Corp., USA

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D. Switching, Wavelength-Selective Filtering and Routing Devices

OMC - Low-Cost ROADM: Wavelength Switching vs Tunable Filters
Organizers: Haifeng Li, Tyco Telecommunications, USA hli@tycotelecom.com
Dan Marom, The Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Israel danmarom@cc.huji.ac.il

Reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) technology enables remote traffic provisioning at the wavelength level in network nodes. This capability allows the network operator to increase system efficiency and reduce operating expenses. However ROADM deployment is limited due to its initial costs, hence the drive to reduce cost for ROADM implementations. Under the scope of this workshop, we focus on two general technology categories: 1) The simple, but functionally limited, single-channel ROADM, based on tunable filters; and 2) the more expansive and expensive, wavelength-selective switches. At the workshop, users of the ROADM modules like system integrators and equipment vendors will first present their requirements and willingness of performance and economic trade-offs. Subsequently, the technology developers and innovators will demonstrate and fit their unique product against different applications, followed by Q&A session to the panelists from the audience. The goal of the workshop is not to find the best all-around technology for ROADM, but rather to explore the full potential of each technology to different applications in terms of performance and cost.

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OMH - Integrated Optics in InP: Technology and Economics
Organizers: Yoshiaki Nakano, The Univ. of Tokyo, Japan nakano@ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Rajeev Ram, MIT, USA rajeev@mit.edu

Integrated Photonics based on InP materials has been a promising technology for more than a decade, with impressive demonstrations of multifunctional components on a single chip. The ability to integrate active and passive optical components on a single substrate for the optical window suitable for data- and telecommunications has opened a variety of applications. In the recent past one challenge was the design of high performance subcomponents such as low loss waveguides with optical filters, efficient and high speed optical sources and detectors, with all of these components having polarisation- and wavelength control. A further challenge was the realisation of uniform and high yield processes that would ensure the required cost reduction of integrated optical devices. With the development of proven software models for both passive and active subcomponents, and the recent establishment of focussed InP foundries with controlled process capabilities, Integrated Photonics has taken a giant step from the research playground towards industrialization. At the same time, the FTTx mass market is emerging to provide a boost in the economics of Integrated Photonics products by stimulating the same combination of high volume, high performance and low cost that drove the early days of electronic integrated circuits.

This workshop will address the technology and economics of Integrated Photonics Products for the optical telecom- and data communication and sensor markets. Companies and research institutes are invited to share their views. In addition, companies that have adopted a business model based on fabless operation are solicited to share their experiences. New concepts for integration will be discussed as well as recent trends in applications that are viable candidates for integration technology that have been applied successfully.

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OMG - Design and Planning Tools for WDM Systems and Networks
Organizers: Michael Frankel, Ciena Corp., USA mfrankel@ciena.com
Ekaterina Golovchenko, Tyco Telecommunications, USA kgolovchenko@tycotelecom.com
Stephen Gringeri, Verizon, USA steven.gringeri@verizon.com

Carriers are continuing to experience pressure to reduce both capital and operating costs of fiber-optic communication networks.  Design and Planning tools have a critical role to play in optimizing configurations for providing low start up cost, scalability and efficient maintenance and operation, as well as the exploration of the upgrade potential of the legacy systems and networks. The workshop plans to cover issues related to the development and applications of such tools.  Areas of focus may include tradeoffs in adaptability to either new network deployments or extensions of existing networks, computational accuracy vs. memory and run times, beneficial levels of coupling among service demands, wavelength provisioning, physical transport layers and protection mechanisms.  The other subject of interest is integrated planning approach across WDM and TDM domains, as well as integrating planning around across multiple equipment vendors.  The workshop format will consist of several contributed and invited presentations, followed by a panel discussion.

Invited Speakers include:
Roman Egorov, Verizon, USA
Ralph Leppa and Andreas Gladisch, T-Nova Deutsche Telekom Innovationsgesellschaft, Germany
Matthew Ma, VSNL International, USA
Dmitriy Kovsh, Tyco Telecommunications, USA
Loukas Paraschis, Cisco Systems, Inc., USA
Enrico Ghillino, RSoft Design Group, USA
Yun Feng Shen and Harshad Sardesai, Ciena Corp., USA
Jan Spaeth, Ericsson, Germany
Peter Winzer, Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs, USA

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OMF - Next Generation Optical Networking Applications, Architecture and Technologies
Organizer: Adel Saleh, DARPA/ATO, USA asaleh@darpa.mil

As the telecom industry turns around, it is an opportune time to explore the applications, architectures and technologies of next-generation optical networks. In this workshop, experts and decision makers from the commercial, academic, and government sectors will present their visions for the evolution of the network. The panel will discuss evolving advanced optical networking applications and the associated network requirements. They will address the benefits and limitations of today's networks, and examine what new architectures and technologies are needed to enable the next-generation network. An open discussion session will follow the panel presentations, where audience participation is greatly encouraged.

Panelists:
Dr. Henry Dardy, DoD Senior Technologist and Navy Chief Scientist for Advanced Computation and Communications at the Naval Res. Lab
Dr. Larry Smarr, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and Founding Director of CalIT2, Univ. of California, San Diego
Dr. Stuart Elby, Vice President, Network Architecture and Enterprise Technologies, Verizon Technology Organization
Dr. Rodney Alferness, Research Senior Vice President, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies
Dr. Joseph Berthold, Vice President, Network Architecture, Office of the CTO, Ciena Corp.
Dr. David Welch, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder, Infinera Corp.

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OME - X-PONs, Global Perspectives, Drivers and Tradeoffs that Drive the Technology Choice of the Future
Organizers: Cedric Lam, OpVista, USA cflam@ieee.org
Yun C. Chung; KAIST, Republic of Korea

Deployments of broadband access infrastructures have been speeded up by applications such as video on demand, Internet gaming, peer-to-peer downloading etc. To avoid being left out in the fast-growing video, voice and broadband data triple play, RBOCs in the US are rolling out ATM-PON (APON) based FTTP systems to compete with MSOs who are leveraging their existing HFC infrastructure. At the same time, the Japanese seems to be charging forward with Ethernet PONs (EPON) and the Koreans are experimenting with WDM-PONs.

Since it was first captured in the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) standard, different flavors of PON technologies have been proposed. APONs based on the ITU-T G.983 and G.984 guidelines give them the advantage of available well-defined ATM QoS support. At the same time, EPON adopters are betting on Ethernet cost efficiency, ubiquity and proven compatibility. Some carriers also make use of the huge bandwidth in optical fibers by overlaying services such as legacy analog video on their PON fibers with coarse WDM.

The following bullets give a non-exhaustive list of interplaying factors that will affect a network service provider’s choice of a particular PON technology:

• Capital cost
• Capacity limit
• SLA and QoS support
• Compatibility and integration with legacy local and backbone infrastructure
• Technical staff know-how
• Ease of deployment, operation and management
• Technology trend and growth potential
• Regualtions, government policies and strategic considerations

In this workshop, we will invite industry experts from different parts of the world to review and discuss the drivers and trade-off considerations in the choice of PON technologies for their territory.

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NFOEC WORKSHOPS

NMB - Optical Performance Monitoring: What Are the Possibilities and What Do Carriers Need?
Organizer: Ron Skoog, Telcordia, USA rskoog@research.telcordia.com

Optical Performance Monitoring (OPM) is essential for the operation of all-optical portions of transport networks. Today we have ultra-long-haul systems forming significant all-optical network segments; looking to the future, networks will utilize all-optical switching to form more expansive all-optical sub-networks. With these developments there will be an increasing need for economic optical monitoring that can identify and isolate degradations and failures in all-optical sub-networks. This workshop will provide perspectives from carriers, equipment vendors and researchers on today’s OPM capabilities, what carriers will need and what the possibilities are for tomorrow. The planned format will consist of contributed presentations, followed by a panel session. Interested presenters should contact the organizer.

Invited Speakers include:
Vishnu Shukla, Verizon, USA
Martin Birk, AT&T Labs Res., USA
Dan Kilper, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, USA
Yun Chung, Dept. of Elect. Engineering, KAIST, Korea
Bengt-Erik Olsson, Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Sweden

Vendor Contributions:
Mark Lourie, Aegis Semiconductor, Inc., USA
David Menashe, RedC Optical Networking Ltd., USA

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NMA - OC-768: When/How/Where? Drivers and Challenges in Deploying a Network to Support OC-768
Organizer: Gary Nicholl, Cisco, Canada gnicholl@cisco.com

With the introduction last year of 40 Gb/s interfaces on the next generation of core routers, the industry has seen a steady uptake in interest on 40 Gb/s networking technology. Several service providers have announced both 40 Gb/s field trials and limited deployment over the past year. Advances in component technology have allowed not only improvements in reliability and performance, but also extremely aggressive cost points, however, there are still some challenges ahead. The desire to support seamless transitions from 10 Gb/s transport solutions to 40 Gb/s adds some issues, such as OSNR performance, tolerance to chromatic and polarization-mode dispersion, which must be overcome before 40Gb/s is ready for wide scale deployment.

In this workshop a panel of industry experts, from both service providers and equipment manufacturers, will review the current state of 40 Gb/s technology, the technical and business challenges, and discuss what it will take for 40 Gb/s to become a widely deployed networking technology.

Invited Speakers include:
Ross Saunders, Stratalight, USA
Steve Penticost, Mintera, USA
Joerg-Peter Elbers, Ericsson, Germany
Michel P. Belanger, Nortel, Canada
Ralph Leppla, Deutsch Telecom, Germany
Li Xing, CERNET, China
Vik Saxena, Comcast, USA
Daniel L. Peterson, Verizon, USA
Joseph Stewart, Cisco, USA

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