Keithley 6074 time to market free download

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Advanced Test Equipment Can Shorten TIme To Market For New Fiber Optic Communication Gear Raj Nair Keithley Instruments Inc. The recent battering of optical network and related stocks, along with those of other technology companies, belies the underlying fundamentals of the communications industry. In the face of financial turbulence and consolidations, the long-term outlook for optical networking remains positive. Companies such as Marconi, Nova Crystals, Alcatel and others continue to announce capacity expansions for opto devices. These expansions are being coupled with vigorous cost reduction efforts to help bring down component and system prices, which the industry recognizes as a necessity. One manufacturer predicts that prices need to drop by as much as 40% if present growth rates are to be maintained. Although triple digit growth rates seen by some manufacturers probably will not be repeated, there still is a strong effort to expand fiber optic cable capacity by increasing the use of Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplexed (DWDM) technology. This unique technology is the most economical way to expand bandwidth on existing networks and provide much faster transmission of data, voice and video signals. Because of the high cost of installing new terrestrial and undersea cable, these sectors in particular should continue to provide the impetus for strong growth in DWDM componentry. New Technologies in Transmitter Modules In DWDM transmitter modules, tunable lasers are becoming a hot item. As the number of transmitted channels increases from 16 to 400+ over the next few years, the challenge of developing scaleable cost effective DWDM systems with fixed wavelength lasers will increase. For the laser manufacturer, tunability provides process and yield improvements, since a given chip can be tuned to any one of the ITU-T channels. This eliminates the need to build an inventory of laser diode wafers for each major wavelength. Similar benefits accrue to transmitter module builders as well as network operators This undoubtedly was a major factor in Nortel's 2000 acquisition of CoreTek, a manufacturer of tunable lasers for 1550nm transmissions. CoreTek uses VCSEL (vertical cavity surface-emitting laser) and MEMs (micro-electromechanical systems) technology in its tunable products. This technology uses tiny movable mirrors to change the wavelength of its semiconductor lasers. Besides its other advantages, such tunability opens up the potential for optical networks to change wavelengths in real time, so traffic can be monitored and re-routed to improve performance. Non-tunable VCSELs are coming into play for the 1300nm and above transmission window. Nova Crystals, San Jose, CA recently announced availability of a 1310nm VCSEL for WDM networks. Previously, VCSELs operated reliably only at the 850nm wavelength, which limited their use to copper-fiber