GigOptix now shipping pre-production quantities of 40G EO polymer modulators

GigOptix has announced that its LX8400, a GPPO connectorized 40G EO polymer Mach-Zehnder Modulator (MZM) has been shipped in pre-production quantities to a number of defense, research and academic customers.

GigOptix says, that it manufactures the MZM die in its fab in Washington and the CM assembles and packages them at its facility. In September, GigOptix shipped product from its contract manufacturer's location to customers signaling an important achievement towards the mass commercialization of EO polymer modulators.

"We have made a lot of progress in the past year. We have brought EO polymer modulators from an internally built research and development stage to a pre-production stage at a contract manufacturer with pre-production units being shipped to select customers," said Dr. Raluca Dinu, Vice President and General Manager of GigOptix-Bothell business unit. "We are now resolving the final steps that will enable us to go to full volume production release."

Dr. Dinu added that GigOptix has carried out extensive reliability analysis and testing of its EO Polymer material. "This is a disruptive technology and customers need to know that it can reliably operate for the long term. Prior to the pre-production release our analysis confirmed that this current generation of material is stable and operates well at 85C making it suitable for a number of our customers' applications." However, for telecom applications that require a 25-year lifespan, GigOptix has an optimized version of its EO material to address the long term reliability performance needs. This material is currently undergoing an extensive testing program. GigOptix plans to migrate all its EO products to this material by end of Q4'09 and be in production parts in 2010.