Finisar Shipping 'Smart' Transceivers

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Finisar Corporation (Nasdaq: FNSR), a technology leader in gigabit fiber optic solutions for high-speed data and telecommunication networks, announced today that it is already delivering its new generation of Small Form Factor Pluggable (SFP) optical transceivers, which feature "smart" digital diagnostic and monitoring functions. These "Smart SFP" transceivers utilize the two Serial ID pins in the SFP connector to allow access to additional memory locations that provide calibrated, absolute real time measurements of the laser bias current, the transmitted optical power, the received optical power, and the internal transceiver temperature and supply voltage. This digital data is generated by the transceiver using an internal analog-to-digital converter together with an onboard processor. Digital alarm and warning flags are also available. "These new digital diagnostic functions allow datacom and telecommunication companies to implement reliable performance monitoring in a very accurate and cost-effective way", said Christian Urricariet, Product Marketing Manager for Optics at Finisar. "Performance monitoring has become much more important as bit-rates increase in order to provide high-quality Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel and SONET optical interfaces for mission-critical applications. This monitoring information can be used to quickly diagnose link outages, speed up repairs, and in some cases even detect a potential problem in the link before it happens", he added.Finisar Corp.