The traffic crossing the network is historically growing at a pace of three orders of magnitude per decade, demanding transmitters and receivers operating at ever-increasing rates. This traffic growth is combined with the trend towards optical signal distribution to shorter distance replacing electrical copper interconnects and using semiconductor lasers and optical fibers in peripherals, computer and telecom equipment backplanes and board-to-board applications. In the future, an increasing number of the 250 million PCs sold per year will require an optical PC-to-PC and chip-to-chip signal transmission, leading to an annual potential demand of over 2 billion devices within one decade.

For both above applications, ultrahigh-performance and cost-effective optical transmitters are required to meet their demands. The cost-effectiveness is required due to the close proximity of the (paying) end-user - the end-user must be able and willing to pay for the speed performance. Hence, only a device capable of the speed while allowing cost-effective mass market production will be successful in the market. The VIS device concept fulfills these requirements, ultrahigh speed and cost-effective production.

Presently, two types of devices are used in the relevant applications: edge-emitters for 1300-1600 nm range and Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) at 850 nm.

Possibility of on-wafer planar-processing technology, similar to that used in Si-chip manufacturing, high efficiency, single-frequency lasing, option of on-wafer characterization and testing, low drive current and power consumption, a possibility of realization of two-dimensional arrays provide decisive advantages to VCSELs in short-distance applications, which is the fastest growing segment of the market. Another key advantage is the butt-coupling of VCSELs to large diameter optical multimode fiber (MMF). MMF presently can operate in a broad spectral range at speeds above 40Gb/s and at distances exceeding 300 m and has a much lower deployment cost. As opposite, the speed of conventional prior-art concept VCSEL has approached 10 Gb/s, but further significant speed improvement is questionable, as underlined by the industry leaders. High current densities needed to reach direct (current) modulation at speeds above 10Gb/s cause a fast degradation of the device and results in significant noise in transmitted signal.

For several reasons regarding production (costs) and performance, the advantages of VCSELs especially in short distance transmission lead them to replace edge-emitters and to be the fastest growing segment in the market. But conventional VCSELs are limited by speed and are not able to fulfill the near-future requirements of the above applications.

VIS’s proprietary technology keeps the standard VCSEL processing and application architectures, keeping the same cost, but allows to build a VCSEL with an order of magnitude higher transmission speed at lower power dissipation.

VI Systems participates in the high-speed Ethernet Standardization Group (IEEE P802.3ba 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s Ethernet Task Force) and made presentations at the last three meetings held:

- March 17-20, 2008 Orlando, FL USA, Presentation, PDF, 507KB >>
- May 12-15, 2008 Munich, Germany, Presentation, PDF, 254KB >>
- July 15-18, 2008 Denver, CO, USA, Presentation, PDF, 386KB >>

Further presentations:
- August, 2-15 2009, Stockholm/Berlin, iNOW Nano Forum, Presentation, PDF, 2,8 MB >>