Genoa begins shipments of optical amplifiers

Optical amplifier maker Genoa today announced it has begun commercial shipments of its linear optical amplifer (LOA) to customers, none of which were announced.

The LOA is a single-chip optical amplifier that the vendor hopes will displace erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) in telecom provider’s networks. Unlike EDFAs, which are manufactured via a process that requires some manual assembly, LOAs are manufactured in a semiconductor process--“So the higher the volume, the lower the cost [per unit],” said Genoa CEO Rick Gold.

As a result, Genoa eventually expects to undercut the costs of EDFAs by at least 90%. This drastic economic change will let network designers rethink the way amplifiers are used in future optical networks, Gold said.

“Historically, amplifiers have been big and expensive, and could only be used sparingly in the network,” Gold said. “With the LOA, the amplifier goes from being one of the most expensive things in a system to one of the least expensive things in a system.”