Broadcom announces industry's first CMOS 40G PHY for long haul optical transport

IRVINE, USA: Broadcom Corp. has announced its next generation 40G physical layer transceiver (PHY) chipset, designed to address the need for higher bandwidth and lower power in Optical Transport Networks (OTN). Broadcom's new 40G PHY chipset is the industry's first to leverage CMOS technology for 40G optical transmission using DQPSK modulation, providing high reliability, lower power consumption and shorter fab cycle time for long haul DWDM transmission.

Demand for additional network bandwidth is being driven by broadband consumer applications such as streaming video, HD video and on-demand services. Broadcom's 40G PHY chipset, including the BCM84141 demultiplexer (Demux) for receiving data, and the BCM84142 multiplexer (Mux) for transmission, work together to deliver a significant increase in network bandwidth and scale while significantly reducing power consumption by more than 50 percent. Broadcom's 40G DQPSK chipset is currently in production with multiple customers.

The high speed network port market is estimated to hit $52 billion in 2015(2) as operators continue to upgrade legacy networks to manage the increasing global demand for higher bandwidth. At the same time, operators are looking to minimize complexity, cost, and power consumption.

Broadcom's 40G PHY chipset provides a cost-effective, reliable solution to meet operator needs today and the building blocks required for future optical transmission speeds up to 100G and beyond. Broadcom's 40G PHY chipset integrates high performance more than 20 Gbps IOs, which is essential for developing future devices that will support 100G optical transmission.