Oclaro Unveils 10G Wideband Tunable SFP+ Module Based on New Indium Phosphide (InP) Laser Platform

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 5, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Oclaro, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCLR), a leading provider and innovator of optical communications solutions, today announced that it will be demonstrating a new tunable SFP+ module based on a new Oclaro InP tunable laser platform at next week's OFC conference.  Building on Oclaro's strong history of 10G tunable DWDM products, the new tunable SFP+ module is based on the latest version of a compact monolithically Integrated Laser Mach-Zender (ILMZ) chip, enabling the module to achieve leading-edge OSNR performance while providing approximately 60% reduced power consumption and 50% smaller form factor than current tunable XFP offerings.

The tunable SFP+ module is an important building block for next generation datacenter, metro and regional optical network equipment because it can reduce the size and power consumption for 10G connections while supporting the network operators' rapidly increasing capacity needs driven by data-heavy network applications. First generation tunable SFP+ modules were not widely adopted because they did not meet the critical requirement of less than 1.5W of power consumption at high operating temperatures without compromising performance when stacking multiple transceivers on high-density line cards. In addition, some of these first generation products were designed with a non-standard mechanical footprint that allowed for heat dissipation, but did not enable customers to re-use existing reference board designs. With its new tunable SFP+ laser design, Oclaro has now solved these critical issues through an innovative new chip design and the use of next generation materials that enable the module to be fully compliant to the SFP MSA form factor and operate at 1.5W at 70 degrees C with excellent OSNR tolerance.

"Oclaro has been at the forefront of tunable laser technology advancements with its leading portfolio of iTLAs, 300-pin MSA transponders and pluggable T-XFP transceivers," said Yves LeMaitre, President of Optical Connectivity Business at Oclaro. "With our new tunable SFP+ module, we've leveraged this expertise to solve the challenges our customers face when they need high-density cards operating at high temperatures while remaining within the power budget and offering the same level of performance and reliability as previous tunable offerings."

About the Tunable SFP+ Module
Featuring proprietary laser and modulator control algorithms integrated in the product firmware, the new Oclaro tunable SFP+ module takes advantage of new materials that improve the performance of Digital Supermode Distributed Bragg Reflector (DS-DBR) tunable lasers designed on an InP photonic integration platform. This includes the use of Aluminum Quaternary active layers embedded into the device structure for significantly reducing power consumption and shrinking the size of the laser and modulator chip.

To highlight the tunable laser's ability to deliver reduced power consumption at very high temperatures, Oclaro will be demonstrating the SFP+ module operating up to 85 degrees C in its booth #3145 during next week's OFC conference. This demonstration will validate the ability of Oclaro customers to develop higher density line card solutions in the future when cooling capacity is expected to be even more challenging.

Key Tunable SFP+ Module Highlights:

• Fully compliant to the SFP MSA form factor
• Operates at 1.5W at 70 degrees C with excellent OSNR tolerance
• Multi-rate operation: 9.95 Gbit/s to 11.3 Gbit/s
• Tunable across the full C-band with 96 channels on the ITU-T 50GHz grid
• APD photo detector supporting limiting or linear electrical interfaces
• Sampling now and volume production ready in Q3 2014

About Oclaro
Oclaro, Inc. (Nasdaq: OCLR), is a leader in optical components, modules and subsystems for the core optical, enterprise and data center markets. Leveraging more than three decades of laser technology innovation, photonics integration, and subsystem design, Oclaro's solutions are at the heart of the fast optical networks and high-speed interconnects driving the next wave of streaming video, cloud computing, voice over IP and other bandwidth-intensive and high-speed applications. For more information, visit http://www.oclaro.com.

Copyright 2014. All rights reserved. Oclaro, the Oclaro logo, and certain other Oclaro trademarks and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Oclaro, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the US and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Information in this release is subject to change without notice.

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SOURCE Oclaro, Inc.