It’s now just over 5 years since we started shipping our first LCoS-based Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS) to customers. At that time, the majority of shipments were for 1×4 WSS (the DWP 100) operating at 100 GHz channel spacing, with a smattering of 1×8 configurations, again operating at 100 GHz. The pace of evolution since then has been nothing short of incredible.
Firstly, there was a move to what, at the time, were high port-count devices (1×8, 1×9). As usual, this caused a number of manufacturing challenges but the robustness of the DWP platform meant that this could be achieved with minimal changes to the optical design.
Next came the introduction of Drop-and-Continue capability that allowed the broadcasting of a single signal to multiple nodes in a system. Whilst this has remained a niche capability, it has found its way into a number of systems in the metro/access space.
A much larger step was the move to 50 GHz channel spacing, again with 1×9 configurations – our DWP50 platform. At that time we started to offer WSS mixed 50/100 GHz channel plans (the precursor of Flexgrid™) based on the capabilities of the LCoS optical processor to switch between different channel types in software.
Whilst the move to high port count, 50 GHz channel spacing was happening in the core, the need for low-port-count devices re-emerged to support the network edge. To meet the demand for both high performance and small size we introduced the EWP platform in 2009, which provides 1×2 switching capability with 50 and 100 GHz channel support in a small-form-factor package.
In early 2010 we started talking about the ability to optimise channel bandwidth to better match the capacity of the signal it was carrying, from which came our Flexgrid™ product line, which was formally released at ECOC in September 2010. This allows the user to adjust the bandwidth of a channel anywhere from 37.5GHz up to 400 GHz in 12.5 GHz steps. Flexgrid has now become a key part of next generation DWDM networks and is part of the ITU G.694.1 standard and is supported on both our DWP50 and EWP50 product lines.
Watch Finisar’s Flexgrid Technology Video to learn more.
Finisar was recently recognized by the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) for outstanding export achievement by a manufacturer and received the prestigious 2011 Large Advanced Manufacturing Award. Over the past year, Finisar Australia’s exports increased 70 percent and Finisar was applauded for its global focus on key customers and ability to target products and services to the specific needs of businesses.
Together, the 75 finalist companies, including the 12 winning companies, have contributed $5.6 billion in export earnings to the Australian economy, and employed more than 10,000 people spanning across the industries of agribusiness, arts, education and training, energy, services and manufacturing.
Australia’s esteemed Trade Minister, Craig Emerson, hosted the event and acknowledged Finisar as a part of the wide array of high caliber companies that reflect the depth and diversity of the Australian economy.
Simon Poole, Director of New Business Ventures at Finisar Australia received the award and stated “We are honored to have had our efforts and successes recognized by Austrade and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. A big thank you for the acknowledgement and support!” Watch Simon Poole’s acceptance speech here.
Finisar Australia’s Flexgrid™ technology has won another award – a National Engineering Excellence Award from the Institute of Engineers Australia. Fresh from winning the coveted Bradfield Award for best engineering project from the Sydney division of the IEAust, Flexgrid™ was one of only 6 national awards presented this year. The award was received by Steve Winnall, Director of Product Engineering, at a black-tie awards dinner in front of 600 guests at Parliament House in Canberra last month.
To quote the judges: “With the exponential growth of data capacity on the internet, the demand for more flexible and efficient optical network services from telecoms carriers is ever increasing. Finisar has met this demand with its new Flexgrid technology. Flexgrid is a unique software enhancement which allows telecommunications carriers to deploy bandwidth, flexibly and dynamically in their networks. Well ahead of their global competitors, Finisar have overcome several engineering challenges and have now successfully launched Flexgrid to the market.”
A video of Steve’s acceptance speech can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPvnMeLIJdI
Finisar was also represented at the ceremony by Andrew Bartos, Steve Frisken and Simon Poole, who, along with Steve Winnall and the MC for the evening, Sally Dominguez from the New Inventors TV Show, are shown in the photo below.
Congratulations to all involved in the Flexgrid™ program – and thank you for your hard work and dedication which have made the project so successful.
This week’s post comes from guest blogger, Dr. Simon Poole.
Us Australians are well known for being quiet, shy, retiring types, so it was great to get a chance to celebrate when Finisar Australia won the prestigious Bradfield Award at the Engineering Excellence Awards held in Sydney last month. The J.J.C. Bradfield Award is presented to the overall winner of Sydney Division of Engineers Australia Excellence Awards. It recognises an accomplishment of exceptional engineering merit and was presented to Finisar for the development of the Flexgrid™ capability for the DWP family of Wavelength Selective Switches.
Finisar’s FlexGrid™ is a flexible software enhancement within the company’s range of Wavelength Selective Switches (WSS) which allows telecommunications carriers to re-route signals throughout their network.
“A FlexGrid WSS can be used for instance if someone digs up a cable by accident. The telecommunication provider can use it to re-route traffic of phone and internet so phones don’t drop out. It can also be used on occasions like Mother’s Day when capacity goes up – carriers can use the Flexgrid to add more capacity to their network,” says Dr Steve Winnall, Director of Product Engineering at Finisar Australia.
“There are problems with the current legacy system which telecommunication provider now use. For example, in situations like the City-to-Surf (a major fun-run in Sydney attracting over 35,000 competitors) people couldn’t make a mobile call because there were so many people in one location. Our product helps to alleviate that and provide a better quality of service. This is a great success story in terms of manufacturing and innovation in Australia as 99 per cent of our sales have been through export, so it is a device that is being used all over the world.”
The judges said the Flexgrid is an innovation that “overcomes the current constraint associated with fixed channel plans used in current optical networks. It is a unique and world leading product in optical fibre telecommunications.
Finisar also won two other categories for its WaveShaper and DWP products and the Flexgrid product was also highly commended in the Innovations and inventions category.
The black-tie presentation dinner was attended by 10 Finisar employees who are pictured with the award below.
All three Finisar winners on the night now advance to the national finals to be held in Canberra in November.
I’ve blogged in the past about the expected demand for Flexgrid-based transmission systems to accommodate future high-bandwidth signals and, at OFC earlier this month this was again a very hot topic, with numerous workshops and technical sessions covering both component and systems aspects of Flexgrid networks. I was a speaker at a workshop on “Spectrally Flexible Optical Networks” organised by BT and ALU and a straw poll at the end of the workshop indicated that of the approximately 100+ attendees at this particular workshop, well over 95% thought that Flexgrid networks were the way of the future. (A personal plea to future OFC Workshop Organisers: 8am is a ridiculously early start time for a Monday workshop, particularly when you’ve just flown in from Asia/Australia as two of the panel had – it was the equivalent of 3am for us!)
One area of discussion was the need to trade off network OSS complexity against providing full (to the GHz level) flexibility in Flexgrid channel bandwidth and centre frequency allocation. It was clear, as discussed previously, that providing control to the GHz level would be unusable but there was a strong preference from at least two of the major carriers for the minimum bandwidth ‘slice’ to be 12.5GHz to support the existing ITU grid down to 25GHz channel spacing. How this works can be seen in the diagram below which shows how 12.5GHz slices can be used to build up both standard ITU-GRID channels as well as arbitrary Flexgrid channels.
From a Finisar perspective we announced at OFC that we’re now shipping fully Flexgrid-enabled WSS with 12.5GHz channel spacing to allow alignment with ITU G.694.1 channel allocation right down to the 25 GHz channel spacing. This is allowing our customers to demonstrate Flexgrid networking and develop the associated network hardware and control software needed to support Flexgrid implementation.
Whilst Flexgrid WSS are the critical component for future Flexgrid networks, a full Flexgrid component ecosystem is required to support the WSS and it was pleasing to see the first Flexgrid-compatible Optical Channel Monitors (OCMs) being talked about by a couple of vendors at the OFC trade show. The issue of the overall Flexgrid ecosystem is an important one which I’ll return to in a future post.
WSS | Simon Poole | 
February 3, 2012 8:03 pm | 
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