Oe Solutions America, Inc.

Packet Photonics, Inc.

Henrik N Poulsen

Daniel Jacob Blumenthal

Holger N Klein

Patrick Bybee

Chad Althouse

Todd Cicchi

Todd Chicci

Sarat Chandra Gundavarapu

An apparatus for controlling, monitoring, and communicating with an optical device, photonic integrated circuit or subassembly is provided. The apparatus includes an optical device or subassembly; and afield programmable device including programmable hardware gates coupled to the optical device or subassembly. The field programmable device may be configured to implement a plurality of functions at a gate level for controlling, monitoring, and/or communicating with the optical device or subassembly, each of the plurality of functions being configured to execute as a concurrent process, without use of a microprocessor or a microcontroller. Further, a programmable optical device, such as a programmable optical transmitter, optical subassembly, or transceiver based on a tunable laser having field programmable device centric control systems with software-enabled features offer extensive real-time control and monitoring functionality based on for example actual traffic flows.

Method and apparatus for controlling, monitoring, and communicating with tunable optical devices and subassemblies

A method and apparatus for calibrating and controlling tunable lasers are disclosed. Multiple methodologies disclosed herein may be used, alone or in combination, which significantly speed up a calibration time and thus provide a significant advantage over existing technology in calibrating the tunable lasers. Certain methodologies benefit from a unique design of the tunable lasers that couple two or more optical facets to an output. The tunable lasers may be equipped with two or more sampled grating distributed Bragg reflector (SGDBR) mirrors and may include Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOAs) after the SGDBR mirrors.

Fast calibration and programming optical components

The present invention describes systemsand methods for control of optical devices and communications subsystems. The control system comprises ASIC sub-modules and programmable circuitrywhich may be integrated into a self-contained, stand-alone module. In one embodiment, the module has one or more FPGAsin conjunction with RF and Digital ASICs, an integrated cross-connectbetween the FPGA and digital and RF ASIC building blocks, and an integrated cross-connectbetween the ASIC and optical circuits and supporting functions. Programmable chip control and other transmission and tuning functions, programmable transponders, and each FPGA/ASICthat is incorporated into a transponder form factor or a host board, can have the same or different functionalities and other parameters including but not limited to modulation format.

Control systems for optical devices and subassemblies

An optical receiver, transmitter, transceiver or transponder for bursty, framed or continuous data. The optical receiver includes a burst mode clock recovery module that recovers the clock rapidly and with a small number of preamble or overhead bits at the front end of the data. A local clock is used for timing when the recovered clock is not available. Transitions between the recovered clock and local clock are smoothed out to avoid undesirable artifacts.

Programmable optical subassemblies and modules

An optical network interface (ONI) module has two main components: an optoelectronic front-end and a general purpose hardware-programmable optical network interface engine. The ONI engine is hardware programmable, allowing the user to configure the overall ONI module with different optoelectronic front-ends and for use with different host modules. In this way, the ONI module can be configured for different applications and protocols.

Optical network interface, module and engine

Systems and apparatus for data communications comprising a plurality of wavelength tunable submodules in an array is provided. Each submodule has a wavelength tunable laser, and each submodule comprises, as an individual unit, a self-contained wavelength locker having optical and/or optoelectronic functions. The system may be a transponder array comprising a plurality of WDM or DWDM modules. In some embodiments, the individual submodules may comprise photonic integrated wavelength tunable lasers with other optical, electrical and optoelectronic components. Each wavelength tunable submodule incorporated into the module or array can have the same or different optical wavelength and other parameters including but not limited to modulation format. By utilizing the wavelength tunable laser submodules to build a module or array, the need for individual modules dedicated to wavelength sub-bands in the array is eliminated. The same tunable module can be used to fill all the wavelengths on a transmission fiber.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Barbara, CA, United States of America

Henrik N Poulsen