Atrica Israel Ltd.

Atrica Ireland Limited

Erik Hendell

Eyal Lichtman

An optical network terminator for terminating and reducing the accumulated noise in optical networks, particularly ring based networks. The terminator eliminates problems of noise accumulation from amplifier spontaneous emission (ASE), thermal noise, etc., while providing bi-directional communications in the optical network. The optical network may have any topology including ring, star, mesh, point-to-point, etc. In the case of an optical ring, the ring is broken and an optical terminator is placed in line therewith. The optical network terminator includes a filer such as an optical demultiplexer/multiplexer or Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) based filter. Each individual wavelength of light is filtered and a multi-wavelength optical output is generated whereby the noise accumulation is removed. Each channel is adapted to only pass a band-limited signal around the center frequency corresponding to the wavelengths supported by the particular optical ring network. Channel equalization uses variable optical attenuators and monitors in line with each channel. Channels currently not in use may be disconnected from the ring remotely by setting the corresponding optical attenuator to a low enough level.

Optical network terminator

A connection mechanism permitting a unidirectional processing device to function as a virtual bi-directional processing device. A pass through dummy connection is inserted in a unidirectional circuit card to permit the connection of standard keyed duplex-paired cables to other processing cards. The use of keyed cables to connect the various circuit cards in a system reduces the burden of a user to manually insure that all cables are properly connected between cards. The pass through dummy connection may be any suitable media such as optical fiber for optical signals or electrical cable, wire or printed circuit board traces for electrical signal.

Growing community of inventors

Tel Aviv, Israel

Erik Hendell