The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 28, 2004
Filed:
Feb. 09, 2001
London Terry Brown, Rochester, MN (US);
Kevin Paul Demsky, Rochester, MN (US);
Ladd William Freitag, Rochester, MN (US);
Daniel Scott Hedin, Rochester, MN (US);
Matthew James Paschal, Rochester, MN (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus are provided to ensure that laser optical power does not exceed a “safe” level in a DC coupled open loop parallel optical link in the event that a fiber optic ribbon cable is broken or otherwise severed. A duplex parallel optical link includes a transmitter and receiver pair and a fiber optic ribbon that includes a designated number N of channels that cannot be split. The duplex transceiver includes a corresponding transmitter and receiver that are physically attached to each other and cannot be detached therefrom, so as to ensure safe, laser optical power in the event that the fiber optic ribbon cable is broken or severed. Safe optical power is ensured by redundant current and voltage safety checks, and the corresponding low duty cycle signal is generated by a safety pulse generator in the safety channel.