D-Lightsys, a

Radiall Radiall is a company that designs, develops, and manufactures connectors and associated components for use in electronic applications. The company offers interconnect components, including radio frequency/coaxial connectors and cable assemblies, a ...

Company, designs and manufactures high performance optical interconnect products for severe environment applications. D-Lightsys products are based on

optoelectronic Optoelectronics (or optronics) is the study and application of electronic devices and systems that find, detect and control light, usually considered a sub-field of photonics. In this context, ''light'' often includes invisible forms of radiatio ...

components. The company headquarters are located in

Aubervilliers Aubervilliers () is a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, Île-de-France region, northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as ''Albertivillariens'' or ''Albertivillariennes''. Geography Localisati ...

, near

Paris, France Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. Products are manufactured in Isle d’Abeau, near Lyon, and are sold through the Radiall sales network under the D-Lightsys brand.

History

In 2002, D-Lightsys won the French award for the most innovative high-tech start-up. It was founded that year by Mathias Pez and François Quentel, two fiber optic interconnection specialists who previously worked for the

Thales Group Thales Group () is a French multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures electrical systems as well as devices and equipment for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security sectors. The company is headquartered in Paris' ...

Advanced Research Center. On April 15, 2005,

announced its acquisition of a 40% stake in D-Lightsys. On January 8, 2008, Radiall announced an increase in its shareholdings of the start-up D-Lightsys to 95 percent.

Research

Many products use

vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser The vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser, or VCSEL , is a type of semiconductor laser diode with laser beam emission perpendicular from the top surface, contrary to conventional edge-emitting semiconductor lasers (also ''in-plane'' lasers) which ...

(VCSEL) technology.

Point to point VCSEL-based free space optical data link

D-Lightsys considers free space optical links for intermediate communication distances ranging from a few centimeters to one or two meters. In a 2006 paper, they presented the initial simulations and the first experimental characterizations of a VCSEL-based point-to-point free space interconnect on distances ranging from 16 cm to 40 cm targeting bit rates up to 10 Gbit/s.

High-throughput optical interconnect technology

Alcatel Space Thales Alenia Space () is a Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer. A joint venture between the French technology corporation Thales Group (67%) and Italian defense conglomerate Leonardo (33%), the company is the largest satellite manufacture ...

and the

CNES The (CNES; French: ''Centre national d'études spatiales'') is the French government space agency (administratively, a "public administration with industrial and commercial purpose"). Its headquarters are located in central Paris and it is und ...

have investigated optical interconnects as an enabling technology that may offer the high-throughput data communication capabilities required to the future on-board processors and digital equipment. D-Lightsys cooperated on this research with the development of the optoelectronic modules.

Spatiotemporal and thermal analysis of VCSEL

High-speed optoelectronic modules using VCSEL] coupled to

multi-mode optical fiber Multi-mode optical fiber is a type of optical fiber mostly used for communication over short distances, such as within a building or on a campus. Multi-mode links can be used for data rates up to 100 Gbit/s. Multi-mode fiber has a fairly large ...

s are used for

10 Gigabit Ethernet 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE, 10GbE, or 10 GigE) is a group of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of 10 gigabits per second. It was first defined by the IEEE 802.3ae-2002 standard. Unlike previous Eth ...

in short-distance optical links. A complete model of the spatiotemporal behavior of multimode VCSELs, through static and dynamic response, noise, thermal effects, and its coupling to MMF has been investigated. The two founders of D-Lightsys took part in this study. Relative intensity noise shows modal dependence and can be affected by spatial filtering due to coupling and fiber propagation. Simulations permit to evaluate critical parameters, such as modulation formats, launching conditions, and operating temperature for global bandwidth and eye diagram optimization up to 10 Gbit/s. Simulation results are compared to measurements on prototype optoelectronic modules.

VHDL-AMS model

In a 2004 study, in which Matthias Pez of D-Lightsys contributed, is presented a methodology based on VHDL-AMS modeling for taking into account the thermal effects of an optical emission module combined with electronic and optic behavior. The thermal transfer is due to the self-heating on one side and the interaction between the components of the other side. This methodology is implemented and simulated with ADVanceMS.

References

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External links

D-Lightsys web site

Reuters Press Release: GigOptix and D-Lightsys Optical Interconnects to be Used on Airbus Military A400M
Fiber-optic connectors Electronics companies of France