These transponders provide an optical-to-electrical and electrical-to-optical conversion solution for local area, metropolitan and long reach optical networks at four times the information rate of today's 10Gb/s products. Due to the highly integrated nature of transponders, system manufacturers can save several months in design and development of optical networking systems by not having to deal with board-level, discrete circuit designs. The transponders are being designed to support the needs of Synchronous Optical Network/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SONET/SDH) and Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) systems, metropolitan rings, optical add/drop multiplexers and IP switches and routers. The MSA members believe that transponders developed under the MSA will enable the highest level of system performance currently available to meet future bandwidth requirements.

These 40Gb/s MSA transponders feature integrated Clock and Data Recovery (CDR) and a Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) supporting 16 electrical, parallel, input and output channels at 2.5Gb/s. MSA members will work together to define a common standard for the 40Gb/s transponders. The members believe the fully integrated solution will afford network system suppliers shorter design cycles and allow a significant increase in network capacity.

Under the terms of the agreement, transponders from all of the signatories will conform to and be verified against a specified set of physical, electrical and functional requirements. Further, the agreement allows for a common transponder design platform to address the needs of very short reach, short reach, intermediate reach and long reach networks. Transponder products are expected on the market in the 2003-2005 timeframe.

October.2001