A parallel optical interface is a form of

fiber-optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

technology aimed primarily at

communications Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...

and networking over relatively short distances (less than 300 meters), and at high bandwidths. Parallel optic interfaces differ from traditional

fiber-optic communication Fiber-optic communication is a form of optical communication for transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of infrared or visible light through an optical fiber. The light is a form of carrier wave that is modul ...

in that data is simultaneously transmitted and received over multiple fibers. Different methods exist for splitting the data over this high-bandwidth link. In the simplest form, the parallel optic link is a replacement for many serial-data communication links. In the more typical application, one byte of information is split up into bits and each bit is coded and sent across the individual fibers. Needless to say, there are many ways to perform this

multiplexing In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource� ...

provided the fundamental coding at the fiber level meets the channel requirement. The main applications for parallel optical interfaces are found in

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

and

supercomputer A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...

s, also being introduced to consumer applications. It displaces copper

backplane A backplane or backplane system is a group of electrical connectors in parallel with each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same relative pin of all the other connectors, forming a computer bus. It is used to connect s ...

s that are commonly used for large switching equipment design. There are two forms of commercially available products for parallel optic interfaces. The first is a twelve-channel system consisting of an optical transmitter and an optical receiver. The second is a four channel

transceiver In radio communication, a transceiver is an electronic device which is a combination of a radio ''trans''mitter and a re''ceiver'', hence the name. It can both transmit and receive radio waves using an antenna, for communication purposes. The ...

product that is capable of transmitting four channels and receiving four channels in one product. Parallel optics is often the most cost-effective solution for getting 40 Gigabit per second transmission of data over distances exceeding 100 meters. 100GE Optical Transceiver comes with 100 Gigabit of data transmit. Data is delivered in both duplex and parallel mechanism with 100GE.

References

Fiber-optic communications {{compu-network-stub

See also

References