Recent months have seen a host of new VCSELs emerge from a number of manufacturers including AXT and Emcore. This trend is continuing with new products emerging based on the oxide confinement structure and aimed at growth areas such as the Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel standards. Emcore show off 10 Gbit/s VCSELs At the Optical Fiber Communication conference (OFC) in Anaheim, CA, Emcore debuted its 850 nm 10 Gbit/s oxide VCSEL, the first such product on the market. These new VCSELs are available as bare die or can be built into optical subassemblies. The device is designed for optical interconnect applications under 300 meters, including local area networks (LANs) such as Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel. The 10 Gbit/s VCSEL has two topside co-planar contacts to facilitate high-speed packaging. The typical optical output power range is 1 mW, with a numerical aperture of the emitted beam less than 0.25. The device has a current threshold less than 1 mA, with nominal slope efficiency of 0.4 W/A. "Our oxide VCSELs have higher speeds, lower current thresholds and greater uniformity than conventional ion-implanted VCSELs" says Hong Hou, vice-president of Emcore s Optical Device Division, "and they are the ideal source for short reach and very short reach datacom applications." Blaze and Cognet choose Emcore Emcore has announced the availability of a family of course wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) VCSELs for high-speed data communications. The devices, which consist of four oxide VCSELs with wavelengths of 778 nm, 800 nm, 825 nm, and 850 nm, have been selected by Blaze Network Products and Cognet Microsystems for use in their CWDM modules. Each VCSEL operates at 3.125 Gbit/s for an aggregate bandwidth in excess of 10 Gbit/s. With thresholds averaging 2 mA per VCSEL and typical slope efficiencies of 0.5 mW/mA, light output of 2 mW or more can be obtained with minimum power usage. Blaze is the first commercial venture to exploit WDM for short wavelength and data communications applications. Its 10 Gbit/s module designed for optical connect applications under 300 meters - including LANs such as Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel - is the first of its kind in the marketplace. Cognet Microsystems is a manufacturer of amplifiers and laser drivers for SONET, OC-48, OC-192 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet markets and recently became a division of Intel. Emcore has demonstrated speeds of up to 12.5 Gbit/s, and was the first vendor to produce oxide VCSELs in commercial quantities. The oxide VCSEL product line has been expanded to accommodate several datacom applications, including Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, OC-192 and OC-768. Optical sub-assemblies released Emcore has also announced the availability of its first SC and LC transmitter optical subassemblies (TOSAs), designed for 850 nm applications (see ). The TOSA packages (see figure 1) perform at data rates of 1, 1.25, 2.1 or 2.5 Gbit/s, which are suitable for Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel and OC-48 applications. The availability of a single product for all applications will enable customers to reduce the number of inventory items they must carry. SC transceivers have the largest installed base in Gigabit Ethernet and 1.25 Gbit/s Fibre Channel applications, while LC transceivers are the most popular module for 2.125 Gbit/s Fibre Channel and OC-48 short reach applications. Samples of the new products, which incorporate Emcore s 2.5 Gbit/s oxide VCSELs, are available now, with production volumes available by the end of the second fiscal quarter. "Our customer base has been requesting a cost effective, reliable, turn-key product for easy integration into their transceiver modules," said Hong Hou. "Emcore can now provide its customers with bare die, arrays, packaged components and optically aligned packages to meet their specific product needs." AXT launch oxide VCSELs AXT has commenced volume production of oxide-confined VCSELs designed for data modulation rates up to 3.125 Gbit/s. Typical output powers are 1.0 mW, with peak power output exceeding 5.5 mW. The oxide VCSELs are highly efficient, and have output slope efficiencies of 0.450.50 W/A. Applications for this product include VSR Ethernet, Fibre Channel for storage area networks, optical interconnections and other optical transceiver applications. New product line from Honeywell Meanwhile, the VCSEL Products Division of Honeywell has announced the full production release of its oxide-isolated VCSEL product line, which will include a set of high-performance 850 nm VCSELs packaged for high-speed data communications (> 2 GHz). "Extensive work in understanding the oxide VCSEL process interactions and effects on long-term reliability has resulted in a product approaching the reliability of our successful ion implant VCSELs," says Paul Chapman, vice-president and general manager of the VCSEL Products Division. While the oxide VCSEL line has just been formally released for general sale, the release represents the culmination of extensive design work at Honeywell, which is supported by a wealth of reliability data and months of trials by a limited customer list.