The “plugPON: PLUGgables (and not only) to upgrade and simplify 10G and beyond PONs (FEDER – COMPETE 2020 Nr. 047221)” project consortium will be at the world’s most important trade fair for optoelectronic solutions, the OFC conference 2023, on the 7th of March, in San Diego (California, USA), to demonstrate the latest advances in optical integrated circuits (PICs).
This demonstration is part of the course of the project, which is funded under the Portugal 2020 program, and is focused on the development of PICs for future generation access networks, using passive optical structures, which allow the feasibility of deploying this type of optical chips in 25G and 50G technology networks to be verified.
This project results from the collaboration between the companies PICadvanced and Altice Labs and specialized researchers from Instituto de Telecomunicações de Aveiro, highlighting the benefits of including optical solutions in access networks. Through this demonstration, it is possible to observe the feasibility of transmitting and receiving data from encapsulated chips in commercial formats at high rate speeds, which will enable the ability, on the operator’s side, to improve the scalability of the current optical fiber network, reducing energy consumption and cost. The presented solution, based on PICs using a quasi-coherent receiver and hybrid encapsulation, is highly customizable and can be adapted to the specific requirements of different future access network technologies, making this solution an attractive option for network providers and operators looking to upgrade their infrastructure.