ASTRON

Description

ASTRON aims at the development of high-capacity, energy-efficient and bit-rate flexible optical transceivers capable of supporting rates from 10Gb/s to beyond 1Tb/s making use of different techniques of flexible super-channel generation (OFDM/Nyquist WDM) without requiring any IDFT/DFT processing in the electronic domain. It relies on the combination of InP monolithic elements, Si submounts and Silica-on-Si planar lightwave circuits for achieving cost-effectiveness, high yield, low power consumption and device scaling far in advance of the level commercially available today. ASTRON will develop advanced digital signal processing algorithms for impairment mitigation and a novel software-defined signal processing module that renders the transceiver flexible in terms of format, bit rate and spectrum utilization.

Besides leading the scientific and technical activities related to the optical transmitter module, Fraunhofer HHI will focus on the development and fabrication of monolithic InP-based, SSC-integrated, and flip-chip ready Mach-Zehnder modulator PICs as active transmitter building blocks for hybrid assembly onto Silica-on-Si motherboards. In addition, Fraunhofer HHI will actively participate in the development and fabrication of Silica-on-Si optical boards as basic integration platform which integrate a variety of components including an AWG-based waveguide structure with iDFT functionality, as well as in the module design and packaging.