How Power Budget Calculations Affect Technology choices in Optical Communication

Seminar: Departmental | November 28 | 4-5 p.m. | 293 Cory Hall

Speaker/Performer: Daniel Mahgerefteh, Director of Advanced Technology, Finisar Corporation

Sponsor: Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS)

Abstract: A key challenge in optical communication today is transporting ever larger bandwidths of data from one point to the other efficiently. Metrics used to judge efficiency of a solution are power consumed per bit, pJ/bit, physical space required for the optical interface Gb/s/mm2 , and cost of transport $/Gb/s. We will show how simple power budget calculations can be used to decide between technology choices to solve a optical transport problem. As an example, Silicon Photonic and VCSEL based solutions are compared for a short reach interconnect.

Biography:

Daniel Mahgerefteh is currently the Director of Advanced Technology at Finisar Corporation. Daniel was the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Azna LLC and the co-inventor of the company’s Chirp Managed Laser (CML) technology. The CML is a novel transmitter technology that allows the use of compact, low cost directly modulated lasers for high performance long reach fiber-optic telecommunication applications and eliminates the need for conventional external modulators and dispersion compensation.
Before founding Azna, Daniel was responsible for technology assessment in the business development group at Opnext, and before that was a senior research scientist at Agere systems, and Lucent Technologies in its Ortel division. Daniel has authored numerous publications and has over 50 issued or pending patents. Daniel has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Southern California.

Event Contact: 510-642-9551