22leos02.qxd 4/8/08 1:14 pm page cov1 ieee · · 2016-11-28van den hoven of genexis in the...

April 2008Vol. 22, No. 2www.i-LEOS.org IEEE

THE SOCIETY FOR PHOTONICS

NEWS

Open Fiber-to-the-Home

Networks in Europe

Open Fiber-to-the-Home

Networks in Europe

Broadband and FTTx - What has been done?

Where is it going?

Broadband and FTTx - What has been done?

Where is it going?

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22leos02.qxd 4/8/08 1:14 PM Page cov2

April 2008 IEEE LEOS NEWSLETTER 1

IEEE

THE SOCIETY FOR PHOTONICS

NEWSPage 21, Figure 10

Figure 10 OFDM-16QAM (a) RF spectrumand (b) constellation diagram measuredat the output of ONU with 100 kmtransmission.

April 2008 Volume 22, Number 2

COLUMNS

Editor’s Column . . . . . . . . . . 2 President’s Column . . . . . . . . . . . 3

14

DEPARTMENTS

News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22• 2008 IEEE/LEOS Award Reminders• Graduate Student Fellowship Program – now accepting applications• Petition for candidates for Election to the Board of Governors• Call for Nominations:

- IEEE/LEOS 2009 John Tyndall Award• Nomination Form

Careers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28• Announcing the 2008 IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Award Winners• 2008 IEEE/LEOS Young Investigators Award Recipient: Jose Azana• 2008 IEEE David Sarnoff Award Recipient: James J. Coleman• Board of Governors New Vice Presidents: Amr S. Helmy and Alwyn Seeds• Announcing the 2008 IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award Winners• 2007 International Semiconductor Device Research Symposium

Membership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31• Benefits of IEEE Senior Membership• New Senior Members

Conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32• CLEO/QELS 2008• 19th Annual Workshop on Interconnections Within High Speed Digital Systems• Photonics North 2008• 2008 IEEE/LEOS International Conference on Optical MEMS &

Nanophotonics• Summer Topicals 2008• LEOS Annual 2008 – Paper Submission

Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38• Call for Papers:

- JOSA B/JLT – New Feature Announcement - Slow Light and its Applications

12

8

11

FEATURES

Special Feature on FTTx:“Broadband and FTTx – What has been done? Where is it going?”, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4by Andre Girard, EXFO

“Open Fiber-to-the-Home Networks in Europe”, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13by Gerlas van den Hoven, Genexis

“Recent Research on Fiber Access Systems for FTTH Networks in Taiwan”, . . . . . . . . . . 15by C.H. Yeh, C.W. Chow, Y.M. Lin, D.Z. Hsu, and S. Chi

Column by LEOS Leaders: “Reflections on a Career in Photonics,” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20by Ivan P Kaminow

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April marks the start of spring in many parts of theworld, symbolizing the start of warm weather and newgrowth. Following this theme, the April Newsletterhighlights the growth of FTTx (Fiber To The Home,Curb, Premises, etc.). As the demand for communica-tions bandwidth expands, optical fiber is making its waycloser to the end user throughout the world. We presentthree articles about FTTx systems this month. Dr. AndréGirard of EXFO Canada has written a nice overview ofwhere FTTx is going throughout the world. Dr. Gerlasvan den Hoven of Genexis in the Netherlands providesperspective on FTTH networks in Europe. Prof. Chi WaiChow and colleagues from ITRI and National ChiaoTung University in Taiwan describe FTTH networks inTaiwan. We hope that you will find this series of articlesto be timely and informative.

We also continue our series of commentaries by LEOSLeaders with an insightful column by IEEE Life FellowDr. Ivan Kaminow. Many readers will be familiar withhis work and will surely find his experiences to be ofinterest. A short preview of the Photonics NorthConference to be held in Montreal, Canada in June and asummary of the recent IDRS conference are also includedthis month.

As always, please feel free to send any comments andsuggestions to [email protected]. I would love tohear what you would like to see in future issues.

Krishnan Parameswaran

Editor’sColumnKRISHNAN PARAMESWARAN

PresidentJohn H. MarshIntense Photonics, Ltd.4 Stanley BoulevardHamilton International Tech ParkBlantyre, Glasgow G72 0BN, Scotland UKTel: +44 1698 772 037Fax: +44 1698 827 262Email: [email protected]

Secretary-TreasurerFilbert BartoliLehigh University19 West Memorial DrivePackard Lab 302Bethlehem, PA 18015Tel: +1 610 758 4069Fax: +1 610 758 6279Email: [email protected];[email protected]

Past-PresidentAlan WillnerUniversity of Southern CaliforniaDept. of EE-Systems/ Rm EEB 538Los Angeles, CA 90089-2565Tel: +1 213 740 4664Fax: +1 213 740 8729Email: [email protected]

Executive DirectorRichard LinkeIEEE/LEOS445 Hoes LanePiscataway, NJ 08855-1331Tel: +1 732 562 3891Fax: +1 732 562 8434Email: [email protected]

Board of GovernorsM. Amann H. KuwaharaK. Choquette C. MenoniC. Gmachl J. MeyerK. Hotate D. PlantJ. Jackel A. SeedsT. Koonen P. Winzer

Vice PresidentsConferences – E. GolovchenkoFinance & Administration – S. NewtonMembership & Regional Activities

- A. HelmyPublications – C. MenoniTechnical Affairs – A. Seeds

Newsletter Staff

Executive EditorKrishnan R. Parameswaran Physical Sciences Inc.20 New England Business CenterAndover, MA 01810Tel: +1 978 738 8187Email: [email protected]

Associate Editor of Asia & PacificHon TsangDept. of Electronic EngineeringThe Chinese University of Hong KongShatin, Hong KongTel: +852 260 98254Fax: +852 260 35558Email: [email protected]

Associate Editor of CanadaLawrence R. ChenDepartment of Electrical & Computer EngineeringMcConnell Engineering Building,Rm 633McGill University3480 University St.Montreal, QuebecCanada H3A-2A7Tel: +514 398 1879Fax: 514-398-3127Email: [email protected]

Associate Editor of Europe/MidEast/AfricaKevin A. WilliamsEindhoven University of TechnologyInter-University Research Institute COBRA on Communication TechnologyDepartment of Electrical EngineeringPO Box 5135600 MB Eindhoven, The NetherlandsEmail: [email protected]

Staff EditorGiselle BlandinIEEE/LEOS445 Hoes LanePiscataway, NJ 08855-1331Tel: +1 732 981 3405Fax: +1 732 562 8434Email: [email protected]

IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society

LEOS Newsletter is published bimonthly by the Lasers and Electro-Optics Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,Inc., Corporate Office: 3 Park Avenue, 17th Floor, New York, NY10017-2394. Printed in the USA. One dollar per member per year isincluded in the Society fee for each member of the Lasers andElectro-Optics Society. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NYand at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send addresschanges to LEOS Newsletter, IEEE, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ08854.

Copyright © 2008 by IEEE: Permission to copy without fee all or partof any material without a copyright notice is granted provided thatthe copies are not made or distributed for direct commercialadvantage, and the title of the publication and its date appear oneach copy. To copy material with a copyright notice requires spe-cific permission. Please direct all inquiries or requests to IEEECopyrights Office.

22leos02.qxd 4/8/08 1:14 PM Page 2


President’sColumnJOHN H. MARSH

As I write this, the Conference on Optical FiberCommunications is one week away. This year, OFC isbeing held in San Diego, California, and the technical pre-sentations and exhibition remain as strong as ever. Thepresentations will cover the latest exciting developmentsin optical communications technology and the trade showwill welcome both established players and new companies.600 exhibitors are expected from 58 countries. Many ofthe newer exhibitors will reflect the shift in the geo-graphical focus of manufacturing industry that has takenplace over the last few years, a shift that is both welcomeand inevitable as the industry becomes truly global.

OFC is regarded as a bell-wether of the photonics indus-try, the communications sector of which has experiencedparticularly painful and turbulent times in the last decade.However, turbulence in the market masks major success.Ultimately the telecommunications industry is sustainedbecause it is beneficial to society as a whole and individu-als are prepared to pay for telecommunication services.Growth in telecommunication service revenues has beensteady every year throughout the last decade, increasingfrom $517 bn in 1996 to $1472 bn in2006 [source ITU/ICT]. It is significantthat no year experienced a downturn inrevenue. If growth curves are extrapolat-ed from the mid-1990s, they line upalmost perfectly with current growth.

Growth in internet traffic is oftenhighlighted as the key statistic, andindeed the number of internet users hasgrown 10 fold since 1997, reaching 1.2billion today and accompanied by amigration from slow to broadbandaccess. However, internet access showswide variation across different geograph-ical regions and countries. In my view,the more spectacular success is in mobilecommunications, where the world pene-tration rate of paid subscribers is expect-ed to reach 50% this month (February2008) [source ITU/ICT]. This statistic istremendously exciting and should becelebrated by all those attending OFC.The engineering achievement shouldalso be celebrated, as it is a significantchallenge to deliver telecommunicationservices of all types at an ever decreasingcost per bit. In this context, reducingcost in the optical fiber backbone is asimportant as the development of ultra-low-cost handsets.

The anomalous event, of course, is the enormousinvestment made in companies, licenses, and technologiesover a period of around three years centered on 2000. Backin the 1990s, a sober, if unimaginative, extrapolation ofthe growth curve would have led to the conclusion thatdemand for capacity would be at the levels currently expe-rienced. However, in the 2000 period the market was ledby emotion and fevered imagination! Those questioningwhere the money would come from to support the aggres-sive growth predictions were told that individuals wouldbe prepared to spend a significantly higher proportion oftheir disposable income on telecommunications services.History shows that sudden changes in spending patternsare very rare, so demand failed to match expectations andtelecom share prices collapsed. As a result investment andpension funds (including IEEE’s own investments) lostlarge amounts of money. The net result is that a real suc-cess of the worldwide engineering community is widelyperceived by the public to be a failure.

Through this period of turbulence, however, the OFCconference has remained strong. It is a tribute to the

(continued on page 22)

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4 IEEE LEOS NEWSLETTER April 2008

Ever since their introduction, broadband and FTTx technologieshave been growing. In fact, global broadband connectionsrecently surpassed the 300 million mark (see Figure 1), and thisfigure is expected to grow for all broadband technologies, at var-ious paces. Furthermore, as service diversity increases and thenumber of broadband connections rises, the related bandwidthand transmission speed will proportionally follow.

The main benefit of a broadband connection is undoubted-ly its speed. For example, Table 1 below illustrates how long ittakes for 660 MB of music to be sent from Palo Alto, CA, toSan Francisco, CA, using different transmission methods -

clearly the broadband FTTH PON transmission offers thequickest option.

Largely due to this ability for high-speed transmission, fiber-optic wireline (FTTx) offerings, also known as fiber-to-the-home(FTTH), fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP), fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC),and fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) or cabinet, are appealing to formerpublic telecommunication operators as future-proof and cost-effec-tive network solutions. This is especially true for those offeringservices such as 3D video, personal video, high-speed Internetgaming and, of course, high-definition television (HDTV), whichis expected to reach 50 million sets worldwide by 2010. All theseservices lead to the need for 30 Mbit/s symmetrical transmission(see Figure 2).

E-health and e-service convergence will also profit frommuch more bandwidth in the near future. For example, e-health

will offer the opportunity for senior citizensto remain in their home while their vitalsigns are monitored in real time and thedata is sent upstream to a remote hospital,where a computer will register their healthstatus. E-health applications can virtuallyeliminate the fear of dying that many sen-ior citizens have when they are admitted toa hospital. Eventually, e-health will providevital information to a nanotechnology-based command-control-communication(C3) system that will administer medicines,following a medical procedure controlledfrom the hospital.

There are currently four transport tech-nologies that can compete to support suchbroadband services, digital subscriber line(xDSL), hybrid fiber coax (HFC), cable distri-bution (CATV), and FTTx. Figures 3 and 4illustrate the distance-bandwidth limitationsfor xDSL and FTTx.

On a distance-bandwidth productbasis, optical fiber cannot be surpassed,except when it comes to the cost ofdeploying the optical fiber cable (buryingthe infrastructure), which still accountsfor most of the expense. As for xDSL, thetechnology has largely improved its trans-port capacity, but in doing so has limitedits delivery range (see Figures 3 and 4).

Overall, ADSL is very cost-effective alter-native, as the technology has improved andcan be upgraded; however, chip sets and

Broadband and FTTx – What has been done? Where is it going?Dr. Andre GirardSenior Member of Technical StaffEXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc.

Special Feature on FTTx

Figure 1. Worldwide broadband subscribers, per technology

Worldwide Broadband Subscribers313 Million

At June 30th 2007

xDSL66% – 206 M

Cable22% – 68 M

FTTx11% – 34 M

Other AccessTech

1.2% – 4 M

Satellite0.3% – 0.9 M

Source: Data provided for the DSL Forum by Point Topic (www.point-topic.com)

Figure 2. Downstream and upstream broadband services bandwidth requirements

10

20

30

40

50

HS Internet Gaming +10 Mbit/s

HS Internet Gaming +10 Mbit/s

Upstream Services

Personal VideoMPEG4 ~9–10 Mbit/s

Personal VideoMPEG4 ~9–10 Mbit /s

Growth Potential

HDTVMPEG4 ~9–10

Mbit/s

Recording HDTV5 Mbit/s

Downstream Services

Ban

dwid

th (

Mbi

t/s)

Growth Potential

2nd

Channel

1st

Channel

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electronics must be completely replaced when moving to VDSL,which clearly changes the economic scenario. Of course, if thecopper cable infrastructure is still available and capable of trans-porting the new very high bit rates, then the cost of deployingVDSL will still remain far lower than its corresponding fiber tech-nology. However, if cities adopt legislation forcing every transporttechnology to be buried in new neighborhoods, thus requiringnew infrastructure to be deployed (Greenfield), then the previous

cost-performance advantage of VDSL may not be so attractiveafter all, especially if the life-cycle cost is taken into account.Considering a very long life span and a strong and ongoing band-width demand, fiber would be the better option by far.

In North America, telecom companies have been pushed byCATV transport technology (HFC , see Figure 3) to improve theirservice offerings and increase the downstream speed of their broad-band services. The situation is completely different in Europe andAsia-Pacific (see Figure 1).

Several questions arise when looking at various parts of theworld, and the answers will differ according to the context. Forexample, how much bandwidth are telecom companies willing toprovide to their subscribers? Will it match their current or poten-tial wish to gain access to corresponding bandwidth-consumingservices (see Figure 2)? What price/service ratio can they establishin order to ensure that subscribers can afford their services, whilestill generating a profit and pleasing shareholders? In all theseinstances, the answers will depend on the socio-economic valuesand telecommunications culture in the various parts of the world.

For instance, in North America, owning a house as well as sev-eral television sets is quite common, and professional achievementoften goes hand-in-hand with extensive and continuous consump-tion of telecommunications services. Services such as TV andHDTV are attractive business opportunities for telecom companies,


Figure 3. Various broadband transport technologies

RemoteTerminal

Node(Neighborhood)

Curb(Pole/Cabinet)

Subscriber’sPremises

FTTN

FTTC

FTTP

Fiber

≤ 1 km

≤ 1.5 km

ADSL2 +

3 Mb (1-Play)

30Mb (3-Play)

DSLAM/ATMAggregation ADSL

DSLAM100s Homes Aggregation

OLT

≤ 300

mAggregation

DSL Modem+ STB

VDSL2

30–40 Mb (3-Play)

HFC Cable Modem + STB

Coax

O/E Node

500–1500Homes

HeadendCMTS/QAM

30–40 Mb + (3-Play)

~30 Mb (2–Play)

≤ 3 km

ONU8–12 Homes

BPON + Optional RF Overlay/EPON/GPON

≤ 20 km of Fiber (One Fiber Only, P2MP)ONT + STB +

Home Network

Cable Modem + STB

CentralOffice

ADSLModem

DSLAM/ADSL

DSL Modem +STB

Telcos Initial Access Network

Copper

Note: DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM); asynchronous DSL (ADSL); set-top box (STB); optical network unit (ONU); very-high-bit-rate DSL (VDSL); passive optical network (PON); broadband PON (BPON); Ethernet-ready PON (EPON); Gigabit-capable PON (GPON); optical network terminal (ONT); point to multi-point (P2MP); cable modem termination system (CMTS); quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM); optical-to-electrical or electronic conversion (O/E)

Method

56 Kbit/s PCModem

500 Kbit/s Cable

T1 Line

By Car

10 Mbit/sFTTHPON

100 Mbit/s

Speed Duration

~26 h 12 min

~3 h

1.5 Mbit/s ~1 h

~90 km/h ~40 min

<9 min

<1 min

Table 1. Example of the transfer time for sending 660 MB of dataover 60 km using different transmission methods

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as well as CATV operators, thus explainingthe fierce competition. The continuous hous-ing development (also called Greenfield) alsoensures a permanent growth for operators.Figure 5(a) illustrates typical successful broad-band subscription conditions for the operatorsin North America.

However, European culture presentsanother context, where demand is not neces-sarily as strong as in North America (seeFigure 5(b)). Again, the situation is quite dif-ferent in the Asia-Pacific region, telecommu-nications consumption (not always broad-band) is massive due to the dense populationmostly living in multidwelling units (MDUs)(see Figure 5(c)).

Figure 6 illustrates a typical networktopology for a FTTP-related MDU usinghybrid PON-xDSL architecture.

This variety of conditions for broadbandconsumption offers some potential for FTTx,especially FTTC, FTTP and FTTH but noteverywhere. Fiber still remains costly to

Wealthy Middle-Class NeighborhoodIndividually Owned Expensive House With:Many TV Sets (At Least One HDTV Set)Many PCs with HS Internet ConnectionsA Phone EverywhereLarge Telecommunication Consumption

(a) Situation in North America

Mostly MDUs in CitiesTendency to Go Outside and in CafesIndividually Owned or Rented Apartment With:Roughly One TV SetRoughly One PC with SS Internet ConnectionOne Phone or Even Only a MobileWeak Telecommunication Consumption

(b) Situation in Europe (EU)

MDUs EverywhereTV Sets, PCs, Mobiles Everywhere

HDTV in Rich NeighborhoodsHuge Telecommunication Consumption

300 M+ Internet Subscribers in China Only and Growing

(c) Situation in the Asia-Pacific region

Figure 5. Typical subscription conditions for the operators in various continents

Figure 4. Distance-bandwidth limitations for various broadband transport technologies

Per

Sub

scrib

er D

owns

trea

m L

ine

Rat

e (M

bit/s

)

BPON (622M/1×32) (w RF Video Overlay)GPON (1×32); GPON (1×64); BPON (1.25G/1×32)EPON (1×16)EPON (1×32 w FEC)VDSL2 (30 MHz)VDSL (12 MHz)ADSL2+ (2.2 MHz)ADSL

20 k

m

Premises Reach (km)

240

220

200

180

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Note: With radio frequency (w RF); with forward error correction (w FEC)

22leos02.qxd 4/8/08 1:14 PM Page 8

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deploy, especially if conduit infrastructures must be installed inthe access network, up to the home. For example, in a Greenfielddeployment, FTTH becomes very expensive project, as more than60% of the entire project cost must be allocated to diggingtrenches in order to install the fiber-optic cable (see Figure 7) andother infrastructure elements (cabinets, splice enclosures, etc.).

In such cases, the North American FTTH model and the Asia-Pacific MDU-based FTTP model would tend to offer sufficientreturn-on-investment (ROI) for the telecom companies. In Europe,however, because of the typically short distances between premises,the classical FTTC and the MDU-based FTTP models would offerthe same relative advantage.

Regardless of the specific country and context, a set of five mainconditions can be defined to ensure successful FTTP or FTTHdeployment:

1. Growing telecom market2. Favorable government policies/regulations3. Educated middle class, interested in using technologies4. Optical fiber used as marketing incentive5. HDTV

The first two conditions are a must, as in a recession context,there is not much chance to see many new developments or gov-

ernment incentives in areas perceived to beexpensive. The next two conditions implythat demand and subscriptions for high-bandwidth broadband services will soar ifthe country’s middle class is highly educat-ed, and maybe even wealthy and interestedin the technology itself. This renders fiberoptics, as a medium, very appealing to theuser, as they recognize how this technologycan provide entertainment and improvetheir quality of life. In that context, FTTPand FTTH developers would use fiber-based service access in their advertisementsand promotional material. The last condi-tion is one of the most important as itdrives the substantial growth for band-width demand and, consequently, providesthe most impressive and visual use ofbroadband access.

It would certainly be interesting to verifyif such conditions could apply to the FTTxmarket situation around the world as of 2007.

Figure 8 below provides a good overall indicator of market tenden-cies, although the numbers provided in the figures are approximate.

Until now, practically all TV channels have been transmittedusing analog RF, even for service providers that were early adoptersof FTTH and offering video services together with BPON (seeFigure 9).

However, the prospect of transporting video using theInternet protocol (IPTV) is an interesting alternative to RF videowith some major benefits such as using the same wavelengths inboth downstream and upstream directions, without the need foran EDFA, as shown in Figure 10. Once full digital telecommuni-cation transmissions become mandatory worldwide, IPTV willopen up the opportunity for video production in small officehome office (SOHO) and video transport in both directions. Thismay then generate new business opportunities and new addition-al bandwidth requirements. As a “killer telecommunicationapplication” may be defined as a high-speed upstream applicationrequiring even more returned bandwidth downstream, full digi-tal transport and IPTV may then enable such applications andbring about the opportunity that everyone in telecom business iswaiting for.

In 2007, there were approximately 10 million IPTV sub-scribers worldwide, and the growth rate seems to be constant.This may be taken as an indication that much more IPTVbusiness is yet to come.

In conclusion, there still remain other interesting ques-tions that can be posed as to what the future holds for broad-band and FTTx. Will IEEE802.16e WiMAX (worldwideinteroperability for microwave access) wireless transport everbecome a serious alternative to deliver triple-play communi-cations—especially HDTV? Will it become part of the glob-al telecommunication transport solution? Will wirelessbecome the communication technology of choice insidehomes in the future? Only time will tell with certainty, butwe can prepare ourselves with solid solutions that will serveour purposes for the foreseeable future.

Figure 7. Example of installation of buried fiber-optic cable

CentralOffice

Multi-Dwelling Unit

Fiber Copper

≤ 300 m C

onduit

30–40 Mb + (3-P

lay)

FTTP PON

≤ 20 km of Fiber (One Fiber Only, P2MP)ONT VDSL2

DSL Modem+ STB

OLTO

E

DSL Modem+ STB

DSL Modem+ STB

Figure 6. Typical FTTP topology for MDUs with hybrid PON and DSL architecture

22leos02.qxd 4/8/08 1:15 PM Page 10


OperatorCountryNumber of

Subscribers

Verizon (BPON); AT&T (GPON)

Bell; Telus (Both GPON)

~6 M(Essentially

US)

Telefonica

Embratel

~0.3 M

~7–8 MMostly BPON (Verizon); a Few GPONTotal

USA

Canada

Brazil

Argentina

Chile

Colombia

Country Operator Number of Subscribers

JapanNTT, KDDI, USEN, TEPCO, YahooSoftBank

~7 M (EPON)

KT

Singtel

~4 M (BPON,EPON)

China Netcom (EPON), Beijing Netcom(BPON), China Telecom (EPON/GPON),China Mobile (GPON) PCCW, NOW (~0.7 M Active EthernetSubscr.)

Chunghwa Telecom (GPON)

~5 M

~16–20 MMostly EPON (Few BPON and GPON)Total

China

Hong Kong

South Korea

Taiwan

Singapore

(b) Projects in Europe

Country Operator Number of Subscribers

Bredbands Bolaget (Active Ethernet), MälarenergiStadsnät AB (Active Ethernet), Koping Kabel-TV(GPON), Stadsnäts (Network Association, 200 Cities)Telecom Italia (GPON), Fastweb (Active Ethernet)

~0.5 M

Citynet, Portaal, KPN, ETNL, Dansk Bredbaand,Volker Stevin Telecom, Kenniswijk (All Act. Ethernet)

~0.5 M

FT Group-Orange (GPON) and Erenis, PAUBroadband Country & Free (All Active Ethernet)

BT (GPON)

~0.6 M

Sydfyns Elforsyning (GPON), Trefor, Energimidt(Active Ethernet)

~0.4 M

Total Mostly Active Ethernet; a Few GPON ~2 M

Sweden

Italy

Netherlands

France

UK

Denmark

(c) Projects in Asia

OperatorCountry Number ofSubscribers

Telecom

Nayatel

Center Telecom

Kuwait Telecom

Etisalat; Dubai Internet City

~2 M

~2 MMostly GPON; a Few EPONTotal

Russia

Australia

Kuwait

United ArabEmirates

Pakistan

Telstra

(d) Projects in the rest of the world

NewZealand

(a) Projects in the Americas

Figure 8. PON and active Ethernet FTTx worldwide projects in 2007 (~30M total subscribers)

22leos02.qxd 4/8/08 1:15 PM Page 11


BatteryBackup

Premises

Use

r N

etw

ork

Inte

rfac

es

Drop Cabinet

Feeder Fiber

DropCable(F3)

1490 nm Tx

1310 nm Rx

CO

Voice/Data/VideoFiber Management System

Spl

itter

DistributionCable (F2)

OLT

Feeder Cable (F1)

Ser

vice

Inte

rfac

es

1490 nm Rx

1310 nm Tx

ONU/ONT

When Only F2 isUsed (No F3)

FiberDistributionHub (FDH)

Figure 10. FTTP PON architecture favoring IPTV transport

Premises

BatteryBackup

1490 nm Rx

1310 nm Tx

Voice/Data

1550 nm Rx

Video

ONU/ONT

Use

r N

etw

ork

Inte

rfac

es

FiberDistributionHub (FDH)

Drop

Cabinet

Feeder Fiber

DropCable(F3)

Ser

vice

Inte

rfac

es

Video

1550 nm Tx

EDFA

1490 nm Tx

1310 nm Rx

CO

Voice/Data

Fiber Management System

Feeder Cable (F1)S

plitt

er

DistributionCable (F2)

OLT

When Only F2 isUsed (No F3)

Note: Transmitter (Tx); receiver (Rx); erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)

Figure 9. FTTP PON architecture with analog RF video overlay

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At first glance, the idea of open communications networksseems like an idealistic utopia, something that will always befor the “next generation”. The reality is that such networks arebeing deployed today in Europe! Fiber-to-the-home is revolu-tionizing the European communications market, giving theend-user a real choice.

In many areas, the deployment of fiber-to-the-home(FTTH) is seen only as the way to increase bandwidth. Indeed,most of the passive optical network (PON) deployments inJapan and the US are geared towards providing a higher band-width than current cable internet or DSL technology. InEurope, the point-to-point (PTP) fiber deployments not onlyprovide an even higher bandwidth per user, they also enableopen networking. The key to this “openness” is Ethernet.Based on Ethernet, transparent connections can be madebetween the users in the network and the providers that offercommunication services.

Take the FTTH network of Amsterdam as an example:40000 homes are currently being connected by optical fiber.The fibers are terminated in Ethernet switches in one of fourcentral offices. Each home is provided with a 100 Megabit/shome gateway that features multiple Ethernet ports in addi-tion to telephony and broadcast TV ports. On each port, aservice provider can offer one or even a package of services. Forexample, one user could take services from say four providers,while his neighbor subscribes to perhaps four completelydifferent providers. Changing from one provider to anothertakes no more than a single mouse click in the networkmanagement system.

The Amsterdam example shows that it is the combinationof high bandwidth and flexibility in the network that makesFTTH a viable business. The high bandwidth enables newservices like interactive IPTV in addition to the normal “tripleplay” voice, internet, and broadcast TV services. The flexibil-

ity ensures that users get a choice and are therefore attractedto subscribe to the FTTH network. In addition, the trans-parency of the network makes the management simple andlow-cost, making the operating cost of the network lower thanfor a traditional copper-based access network.

From a technical point of view, Europe’s PTP networks aresimple. Bidirectional transceivers, sending and receivingoptical signals at 100 Megabit/s are installed into the centraloffice switches. High fiber-count cables, with up to 1000fibers in a 1-inch diameter, lead the fibers from the centralswitches towards the homes. Most of Europe’s networks areburied, and ingenious methods have been developed todeploy the individual fiber cables to each home, withoutactually opening up the ground in front of the homes. At thehome gateway, the optical signal enters a similar bi-direc-tional transceiver, and is converted directly to Ethernet.Based on Ethernet tags containing VLAN and quality-of-service information, the communication services are separat-ed and are brought to the correct user ports. The simplicityof this approach directly translates to high reliability, ease ofmanagement, and upgradeability.

An often-heard remark is: why deploy fiber if you are onlydoing 100 Megabit/s? The answer is obvious: the world is notstopping at 100 Megabit/s! In fact, our company is introduc-ing a 1 Gigabit/s home gateway this year to meet the needs ofthe most bandwidth-hungry end-users. Targeting servicesinvolving new standards such the new Blu-ray Disc and high-definition (HD) video content, Gigabit/s home networkingwill enable the distribution of (HD) content, both televisionand gaming. Also here, the open network gives the user achoice: while the most demanding users can benefit from thehighest speeds, the majority of the users can choose a moder-ate bandwidth that suits them best. It is a win-win for end-user and service provider. The end-user gets to choose, and the

Open Fiber-to-the-Home Networks in EuropeAuthor: Gerlas van den Hoven – CEO Genexis B.V.


Deployment of fiber in the Amsterdam Citynet project. Home gateway installed in a Slovenian home (courtesy of Optisis d.o.o.).

22leos02.qxd 4/8/08 1:15 PM Page 13


service provider can maximize its revenue since they providepremium services to those users willing to pay.

It is interesting to compare the situation in Europe to theFTTH deployment in the United States. Initiatives for FTTHin the US started after the Federal CommunicationsCommission (FCC) released new regulations: the mandatoryrequirement for operators to unbundle FTTH was removed.This meant the operators deploying FTTH felt safe that theirinvestment was protected, and that they wouldn’t be openingtheir newly built network to the competition. Good news forthe operator perhaps, but bad news in terms of the openness ofthe network. A US subscriber to FTTH does not have a choiceon the FTTH network; if the user wants to change provider,he has to change from fiber back to copper!

In Europe, such regulations protecting the operator do notexist. Yet, many operators, including the large Dutch incum-bent KPN, are deploying FTTH in significant volumes. Dothey run the risk of losing their investment? The answer is no!More and more, Europe’s operators are choosing an open net-work model, where the operation of the network is clearly dis-tinguished from the provision of services. In the Dutch city ofEnschede, users can choose between multiple serviceproviders, all being delivered on KPN’s FTTH infrastructure.Based on PTP Ethernet, switching from one provider toanother simply means assigning a different VLAN to a port onthe home gateway. In a way, one could say that Europe’s oper-ators are opening their networks even before regulations comeinto play to force them!

On the one hand, this strategy seems idealistic, however,from the point-of-view of the operator it makes prefect busi-ness sense. Europe’s operators have realized that there are real-ly two distinctive businesses: first, selling Megabits to eachhome and second providing differentiated services to the end-users. These roles are very different. Delivering bandwidthimplies building fixed infrastructure (fiber in the ground), lotsof equipment and servicing. Providing services on the otherhand means obtaining content, enabling communication func-tionality (Internet, telephony, etc), and advertising to end-

users. Essentially, a given home will take the bandwidth froma single source, like today’s electricity network, but will use itfor a whole variety of services, just like the things that run onelectricity.

Coming back to how to realize such open service net-works, Europe has been considering several networkingtechnologies. Rather than end-up in a technical discussionon the pro’s and con’s of PON versus PTP, the operatorshave considered which technology will get the maximumnumbers of users onto the network. In a PON network,open networking is an issue, and PON is therefore onlysuited to vertically integrated operators. This makes it dif-ficult for an end-user to change from a trusted copper-basednetwork with a familiar operator, to a new – therefore un-trusted – fiber network from a different operator. WithPTP, open networking comes naturally; the end-user has tochoose the provider he wants. This lowers the hurdle thatend-users have to overcome, and therefore strongly increasesthe acceptance of FTTH.

Fiber-to-the-home is therefore not just a new exciting tech-nology, but is much more a new way of providing andenabling communication services in our 21st century commu-nications society. Making the right technology choices thatenable this new way of communication, will be a crucial fac-tor for network operators in the coming 5 years.

BiographyGenexis was founded in 2002 with the objective of servingthe upcoming fiber-to-the-home market. With an experi-enced team, with backgrounds in long distance optical com-munications and networks, Genexis introduced the firstfully integrated home gateway for the European FTTH mar-ket. In 2006 this product was selected for the Citynet proj-ect in Amsterdam, one of the leading European FTTHdeployments. Today, Genexis’ home gateway products areused by FTTH operators throughout Europe, includingDutch incumbent KPN. In addition, Genexis is a memberof innovative programs aimed at the development of fiber-to-the-home. Genexis is also a member of the FTTHCouncil Europe.

Gerlas van den Hoven started hiscareer at Philips Research in the areaof components for long haul andmetro networks. He worked as prod-uct line manager for optical amplifi-cation at JDS Uniphase, where hebecame part of the JDSU Netherlandsmanagement team. After JDSU,Gerlas worked for Genoa Corporationas VP Products. Here, he developedthe market for low-cost integrated

optical amplifiers for the metro-access market. In 2002,Gerlas co-founded Genexis together with a team of peoplewith experience in the fiber-optic communication market.Gerlas van den Hoven holds a PhD on the subject of silicon-based photonic materials.

Close up of a typical FTTH home gateway showing the users portsvoice, broadband data and CATV.

Gerlas van den Hoven

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AbstractWe describe current research on FTTH for the last mile accessand discuss the M-Taiwan project, which has a target of pro-viding broadband everywhere in Taiwan. Several related tech-nologies, such as upstream signal power equalization, fiberaccess network with self-healing functions, OFDM-basedPON and carrier distributed WDM-PON have been studiedby ITRI and NCTU.

IntroductionRecently, because of demand from high data rate triple-playservices, the deployment of fiber to the home (FTTH) and therelated standardizations are becoming increasingly impor-tant. At the end of 2006, there were 4.55 million broadbandInternet accounts in Taiwan, for an impressive penetrationrate of 78.72% [1]. Of these, 87% used DSL, 8% used cablemodem, 4% were on a fiber optic line, and the remainderused leased lines to access the Internet. According to theWorld Broadband Statistics 2006 Q2 report by Point Topic,Taiwan ranked third in DSL penetration of phone lines at29.3%, just behind France and Finland. In terms of DSLaccounts, Taiwan ranked 10th with 3,835,000 users. Thesestatistics confirm Taiwan's commitment to creating a world-class communication environment for high quality e-servicesavailable at home, office, school and in the community or onthe move.

Broadband Internet infrastructure development programswere initially introduced in the government's KnowledgeEconomy Project, National InformationInfrastructure (NII) Promotion Programand e-Taiwan Program. Thereafter, theBroadband Duct Construction Project wasestablished in 2003 to facilitate the cre-ation of a seamless broadband Internetenvironment, encourage fair competition,and promote the telecommunications anddigital content industries. Later the M-Taiwan (Mobile Taiwan) Program wasintroduced with the aim of building anenvironment for wireless broadband appli-cations and to provide users with unfet-tered e-services. Under the M-TaiwanProgram, NTD30 billion has been allocat-ed for the Broadband Duct Construction

Project, which aims to eventually build 6,000 kilometers ofbroadband pipeline across the island. These public ducts willbe leased to telecommunications operators for the deploymentof broadband Internet (such as optic fiber) networks. This willgreatly improve the bandwidth and quality of last mile con-nectivity in Taiwan.

Passive optical networks (PON) are considered as a prom-ising candidate for FTTH to overcome the last mile bottleneckin broadband optical access network [2], [3]. Time divisionmultiplexing PON (TDM-PON) systems such as EthernetPON (EPON) and Gigabit PON (GPON) have already beenstandardized [4], [5]. They are currently operating at thenominal line rates of 1.25 Gbit/s and 2.5 Gbit/s for EPONand GPON, respectively. In Taiwan, the M-Taiwan projectwas advanced by the government to supply the broadbandaccess. Chunghua Telecom Co. Ltd. will lend an impetus toprovide FTTH from 2007 to 2009. Industrial TechnologyResearch Institute (ITRI) not only develops GPON system forcommercial applications, but also works closely with theNational Chiao Tung University (NCTU) on PON relatedresearch to provide the best choice and solution for FTTH. Inthis paper we introduce several technologies for PON applica-tions, including the upstream power equalization for highspeed TDM-PON, self protection PON system against fibercut, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based PON and carrier distributed wavelength division mul-tiplexing PON (WDM-PON) [6-10].

Technical ResearchWe proposed a cost-effective power-equalized technique forGPON using a Fabry-Perot laser diode (FP-LD) to serve as apower equalizer, as illustrated in Figure 1. The equalizer con-sisted of an optical circulator (OC) and FP-LD connecting thereceiver (Rx) in the optical line terminal (OLT). The upstream


1 INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS LABORATORIES,INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE, CHUTUNG,

HSINCHU 310, TAIWAN2 DEPARTMENT OF PHOTONICS AND INSTITUTE OF ELECTRO-

OPTICAL ENGINEERING, NATIONAL CHIAO TUNG UNIVERSITY, HSINCHU 300, TAIWAN

EMAIL: [email protected]

Figure 1 Proposed power equalizer in GPON to equalize the entire uplink power of eachONU. The equalizer is integrated in the OLT.

Recent Research on Fiber Access Systems for FTTHNetworks in TaiwanC. H. Yeh1, C. W. Chow2, Y. M. Lin1, D. Z. Hsu1, and S. Chi2

22leos02.qxd 4/8/08 1:15 PM Page 15


signals from LD-2 will pass through the 1310/1490 nmWDM coupler and OC into the proposed equalizer (LD-1) toequalize the power level. The operating bias current (Ib) ofLD-1 was set at 9 mA, which was less than the threshold cur-rent (Ith). When upstream signals of power ranging from -1.5to -25 dBm were injected into the LD-1, the output poweronly varied from -11 to -15.3 dBm, as shown in Figure 2. Thisis because the high injection upstream signal will be absorbedwhile the low power signal will be amplified by the slightlyunder biased FP-LD inside the equalizer.

A novel self-protecting architecture for a ring-based PON toprevent fiber failure in a single-path was proposed and demon-strated. Assuming the proposed self-healing architecture systemhas four optical networking units (ONUs), as shown in Figure3. The downstream signal of OLT was transmitted through thepath “a” (in clockwise) without any fiber failure (in normalstate). As illustrated in Figure 4, the OLT can determine twodifferent transmission paths for data traffics by the proposedcombiner integrating in the OLT. The proposed combiner con-sisted of two 1×2 optical couplers (CPRs) and a 1×2 opticalswitch (OS). The switching direction of OS can be controlled bythe media access control (MAC). In normal state, the OS wasplaced at point “1” for the downstream traffic through the fiberpath, “a” as shown in Figure 4(a). Figure 5 presents the proposedONU with bidirectional function to access the downstream andupstream links. Physical layer of each ONU was constructed bya 2×2 CPR and two line terminations (LTs). The upstream traf-fic will be transmitted from the LT(1) through path “a” (coun-terclockwise) without any fiber failure. LT(0) of ONU was pre-pared against the fiber failure. When a fiber fault occursbetween ONU2 and ONU3, then the data traffics of ONU3and ONU4 cannot link with the OLT. At this time, the twounreachable ONUs will start driving the LT(0) to reconnect thedata links simultaneously. And the OLT will switch the direc-tion of OS to the “2” point by MAC, as shown in Figure 4(b).Then, the downstream signal will be separated to pass throughthe “a” (clockwise) and “b” paths (counterclockwise) simultane-ously. As a result, the data links from OLT to ONU1 andONU2 were routed through the “a” path (counterclockwise),

and the ONU3 and ONU4 were routedthrough the “b” path (clockwise). Thisrestorable time was achieved within 7 ms inthe proposed access network. When thefiber failure is restored, the operation mech-anism of PON system will be restored.Beside, before the transmission failure (nor-mal state), this downstream signal waspassed the “a” path. However, in case offiber cut, it is no longer possible to receivethe upstream signals behind the fault point.Thus, this downstream signal was split andtransmitted through the “a” and “b” pathsby switching the direction of OS to “2”point, simultaneously. Bit error rate (BER)performance was measured by a 1.25 Gbit/snon-return-to-zero (NRZ) pseudo randombinary sequence (PRBS) with a patternlength of 231-1 for the downstream and

Figure 3 The data traffics of the proposed self-protecting ring-based PON with four ONUs in normal state.

Figure 4 The proposed combiner in OLT to control the transmitted direction of downstreamsignal, when the direction of OS is set to (a) the “1” point and (b) “2” point.

Input Upstream Power (dBm)

−30 −25 −20 −15 −10 −5 0

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eive

d U

pstr

eam

Pow

er (

dBm

)

−25

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Figure 2 Received average output power of the proposed equalizerversus different upstream injection powers from -1.5 to -25 dBm.

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upstream traffic between the OLT and ONU4 through “a”(without protection) and “b” (with protection, fault betweenONU3 and ONU4) paths. The output power of 1490 and 1310nm transmitters were 2 and 2.5 dBm, respectively. Figures. 6(a)and 6(b) show the measured downstream and upstream BERs inthe self-protected ring-based PON against the received powerthrough “a” and “b” paths between OLT and ONU4. Theobserved optical power penalties were smaller than ~0.2 dB.

We conducted a trial experiment of a new modulation for-mat on the FTTH access networks and presented an OFDM-based 4 Gbit/s PON system that only use 1 GHz compo-nents in 2007, as shown in Figure 7. The study showed thatthe OFDM’s inherent frequency domain equalizer can com-pensate the frequency response ripple. Besides, the highspectral efficiency quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)format can be encoded on the subcarriers in OFDM signal, sothe bandwidth requirements of optoelectronics are greatlyreduced. In the study, we demonstrated that the wideband 4Gbit/s 16-QAM encoded OFDM signal can be transported inoptical access networks with low cost 1 Gbit/s grade opticalcomponents. The transmission BER was less than 10-9 after20 km fiber transmission and the power budget was 19 dB,as shown in Figure 8. The data rate and power budget can befurther enhanced if forward error correction (FEC) wereadopted. Since > 2 GHz high-resolution data convertersbecome commercially available recently, the OFDM signal isa practical candidate for upgrading optical access networksin the near future.

One great challenge in the WDM-PONs is the transmit-ter at the ONU, located in the customer premises, whichmust have a wavelength that is precisely aligned with aspecifically allocated WDM grid wavelength. A cost-effec-tive solution would ideally employ the same components ineach ONU, which should thus be independent of the wave-length assigned by the network – or “colorless”. Althoughthe carrier distributed WDM-PONs have many attractivefeatures, a key issue that needs to be addressed is how best tocontrol the impairments that can arise from optical beatnoise induced by back-reflections and Rayleigh backscatter-ing (RB) of the optical carrier at the upstream Rx at thehead-end office. Figure 9 shows the two dominant contribu-tions to the RB in carrier distributed PONs, which interferewith the upstream signal at the Rx. The first contribution,Carrier-RB, is generated by the backscatter of the CW carri-er being delivered to the RONU. The second contribution,Signal-RB, is generated by the modulated upstream signal atthe output of the RONU. Backscattered light from thisupstream signal re-enters the RONU, where it is re-modu-lated and reflected towards the Rx. The Carrier-RB has thesame spectrum as the CW carrier, while the Signal-RB ismodulated twice by the RONU and has a broader spectrum.Theoretical and experimental characterization of the two RBcomponents have been performed. For efficient RB mitiga-tion, it is important to minimize the spectral overlapbetween the upstream signal and both types of RB, ensuringthat the majority of the frequency components of the result-ant electrical beat noise fall outside the Rx bandwidth.Advanced modulation schemes to mitigate RB interferomet-

ric beat noise have been also proposed and demonstrated.Recently, we applied the 4 Gbit/s 16-QAM encoded OFDMsignal into an electro-absorption modulator (EAM)-basedONU. The performance of the signal was analyzed. Figure10(a) and (b) show the radio frequency (RF) spectrum of the16 subcarrier optical OFDM signal detected at the output ofthe ONU and the constellation diagram after propagatingthrough 100 km single mode fiber without any dispersioncompensation, respectively. The optically pre-amplifier Rxsensitivity was -22 dBm at the BER of 10-9 with 100 kmfiber transmission.

Figure 6 BER performance of (a) downstream and (b) upstreamtraffics at 1.25 Gbit/s modulation. The distance between the OLTand ONU4 is 20 km long.

Figure 5 The proposed ONU module with the bidirectional function.

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ConclusionThe current research of FTTH in Industrial TechnologyResearch Institute and the National Chiao Tung Universitywere presented and discussed. Several related technologiesare reviewed, including upstream signal power equalizationtechnique, fiber access network with self-healing function,OFDM-based PON and carrier distributed WDM-PON.

Reference[1] http://investintaiwan.nat.gov.tw/en/opp/inds/telecom.html[2] F. T. An, D. Gutierrez, K. S. Kim, J. W. Lee and L. G.

Kazovsky, “SUCCESS-HPON: A next-generation opticalaccess architecture for smooth migration from TDM-PONto WDMPON,” IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 43, pp.S40–S47, 2005.

[3] G. Kramer and G. Pesavento, “Ethernet passive optical net-work (EPON): building a next-generation optical access net-work,” IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 40, pp. 66–73 2002.

[4] IEEE Standard for Information Technology, IEEE Std802.3ah, pp.01–623, 2004.

[5] ITU-T Recommendation G.984.2, “Gigabit-capable passiveoptical networks (GPON): physical media dependent(PMD) layer specification,” 2003.

[6] C. H. Yeh, D. Z. Hsu and S. Chi, “Upstream power equal-ization in Gigabit passive optical network,” Opt. Express,vol. 15, pp. 5191–5195, 2007.

[7] C. H. Yeh and S. Chi, “Self-healing ring-based time-sharingpassive optical networks,” IEEE Photonics Technol. Lett.,vol. 19, pp. 1139-1141, 2007.

[8] Y. M. Lin, “Demonstration and design of high spectral effi-ciency 4 Gb/s OFDM system in passive optical networks,” inOFC, 2007, paper OThD7.

[9] C. W. Chow, G. Talli, and P. D.Townsend, “Rayleigh NoiseReduction in 10-Gb/s DWDM-PONs by Wavelength Detuningand Phase Modulation InducedSpectral Broadening,” IEEEPhotonics Technol. Lett., vol. 19,pp. 423-425, 2007.

[10] C. W. Chow, G. Talli, A. D. Ellis,and P. D. Townsend, "Rayleigh noisemitigation in DWDM LR-PONsusing carrier suppressed subcarrier-amplitude modulated phase shiftkeying," Opt. Express, vol. 16, pp.1860-1866, 2008.

−20 −18 −16 −14 −121E-14

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Figure 8 OFDM-16QAM bit error rate performance.

Rx

CW Carrier

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Head-End Office

Customer

Laser1

Laser2

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Wavelength Demux Fiber Splitter

RONU

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Carrier-RB

Figure 9 Schematic of the RB contributions in a carrier distributed WDM-PON.

DataInput

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LaserDiode

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FFTSynchronizerA/D

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Receiver

High SpeedReal Time

ScopeDSP Demodulation

ArbitraryWaveformGenerator

Figure 7 OFDM over fiber system.

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BiographyC. H. Yeh received the PhD degree from the Institute ofElectro-Optical Engineering, National Chiao TungUniversity, Taiwan, in 2004. Currently, he is working inthe Information and Communications Laboratories,Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan. Hisresearch interests are optical communication, fiber laser,optical amplifier, and FTTH application.

C. W. Chow received the B.Eng. (First-Class Hons) andPh.D. degrees both from the Department of ElectronicEngineering, the Chinese University of Hong Kong in2001 and 2004 respectively. After graduation, he wasappointed as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the CUHK, work-ing on hybrid integration of photonic components andsilicon waveguides. Between 2005-2007, he was aPostdoctoral Research Scientist, working mainly on twoEuropean Union Projects: PIEMAN (Photonic IntegratedExtended Metro and Access Network) and TRIUMPH(Transparent Ring Interconnection Using Multi-wave-length PHotonic switches) in the Tyndall NationalInstitute and Department of Physics, University CollegeCork in Ireland. In 2007, he joined the Department ofPhotonics, National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, asan Assistant Professor.

Y. M. Lin received the B.S. degree in electrical engineer-ing from National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu,Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1996 and the Ph.D. degree in com-munications engineering from National Chiao-TungUniversity, Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 2003. H ejoined the Department of Optical Communications andNetworks, Information and Communication Laboratories,Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI/ICL),Taiwan, R.O.C., in 2004. His research interests include

transmission technologies in optical fiber communica-tions and broadband access system.

D. Z. Hsu received the MS degree in 2000 from theDepartment of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng KungUniversity, Taiwan. Currently, he is a research engineer andproject manager in Industrial Technology Research Institute,Taiwan. His research topics are optical communication net-works, optical performance monitoring, and FTTx networks.

S. Chi received his PhD in electrophysics from thePolytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York, in 1971, andjoined the faculty of National Chiao Tung University, wherehe is currently a professor of electro-optical engineering.From 1972 to 1973 he chaired the Department ofElectrophysics; from 1973 to 1977 he directed the Instituteof Electronics; from 1977 to 1978 he was a resident visitorat Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, New Jersey; from 1985 to1988 he was the principal advisor with the Hua-Eng Wiresand Cables Company, the first manufacturer of fibers andfiber cables in Taiwan, developing fiber making and cablingtechnology; from 1988 to 1990 directed the Institute ofElectro-Optical Engineering, and from 1998 to 2001 he wasthe vice president of the University. He was the symposiumchair of the International Symposium of Optoelectronics inComputers, Communications and Control in 1992, whichwas coorganized by National Chiao-Tung University andSPIE. From 1993 to 1996 he received the DistinguishedResearch Award sponsored by the National Science Council,Taiwan. Since 1996 he has been the Chair Professor of theFoundation for Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship.His research interests are optical fiber communications, opti-cal solitons and optical fiber amplifiers. He is a fellow of theOptical Society of America and the Photonics Society ofChinese-Americans.

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Figure 10 OFDM-16QAM (a) RF spectrum and (b) constellation diagram measured at the output of ONU with 100 km transmission.

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At age 78, I can look back on 56 years as an EE with nostal-gia. To summarize, I retired from AT&T Bell Labs in 1996after 43 years devoted to lightwave communications. I havehad the opportunity to continue my interest in technology asan IEEE Congressional Fellow, OSA Senior Science Advisor,and legal expert witness. Since 2004, I have been AdjunctProfessor in the EECS department at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley. Altogether, it has been a very satisfyingcareer; a time that has passed in the blink of the eye. At thekind invitation of editor Krishnan Parameswaran, I’d like totouch on a few highlights.

To start at the beginning, my grandparents came to theUnited States from Eastern Europe; I imagine from shtetls, orJewish villages, similar to the one portrayed in “Fiddler on theRoof.” Both my parents, who were born in New Jersey, had toquit school at an early age to help support their respective fami-lies. Nevertheless, my brother and I went to the public schoolsin Passaic, NJ with the clear understanding we were expected togo on to college. Since I enjoyed math and science, I decided tobecome an engineer, although I didn’t have a good idea of whatan engineer actually did. Civil was tempting because I could pic-ture myself outdoors slogging through mud with a slide rule onmy hip, but finally I chose electronics, thinking I might becomea sales engineer. It turned out to be a good choice.

When I graduated from Union College in 1952, there was astrong demand for EEs, particularly in California where the air-craft industry was gearing up to support the Korean War. Only afew years earlier, EE graduates couldn’t find a job. I had offersfrom Bell Labs in NJ and Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles; I chosethe latter because California seemed more adventurous. TheHughes job offered a higher salary and a Master’s degree fromUCLA. Six months after arriving in LA, I returned east briefly tomarry Florence Fischer, who I had met a few years earlier atSkidmore College. I enjoyed the Hughes Research Lab. It had aresearch atmosphere patterned after Bell Labs and was populatedby PhDs. I worked on slot array scanning antennas for airborneradars. I wanted to get my PhD someday. In 1954, we decided toreturn to NJ with our baby daughter, and to Bell Labs.

My job at Bell was in the military research lab in Whippany,NJ, where I continued working on microwave aircraft antennas.But Bell also had a terrific Communication Development Training(CDT) Program for the new hires without PhDs. We spent 3 daysper week taking courses from Bell Labs research greats as well asprofessors from NYU. We also had an opportunity to rotatethrough three Bell Labs departments to learn what they were doing.I selected a transistor circuit development department and amicrowave tube development department located in Murray Hill,NJ, and a microwave telecommunications systems research depart-ment located in a small wooden building in rural Holmdel, NJ. Allwere rewarding experiences but I liked the Crawford Hill lab in

Holmdel best because of the lovely surroundings, small size, and theconnection with microwave devices, which I found quite fascinating.

In 1956, another great opportunity came my way. The Bell LabsCDT Program was to last three years and required lots of home-work. The students complained they were working as hard as ifthey were in grad school but were not earning a degree. The BellLabs management responded by selecting two students from eachclass to send for their PhDs. I was one. I wanted to go to MIT orHarvard; I was accepted at both. I chose Harvard because it didn’trequire a written preliminary exam as MIT did. The MIT prelimwas legendary for containing tricky questions that would haverequired a year of preparation. Harvard had a verbal prelim, whichI sailed through.

I moved with Florence and our two children, Paula and Leonard,to Brookline, MA, from where I could bike to Harvard. By the timeI graduated, our third, Ellen, had arrived. I was able to managefinancially because Bell Labs still paid my regular salary. I enjoyedgrad school immensely but, as a father of three, I needed to gradu-ate quickly. My thesis, completed in 1960, was on ferromagneticresonance at microwave frequencies and high pressures; my advisorswere C. Lester Hogan and, later, R. Victor Jones.

More good luck: just after I returned to the Crawford Hill Lab,Ted Maiman at Hughes demonstrated the first laser, setting off afrenzy of activity in the research departments. Most people tried toreproduce Maiman’s result and then move on to more practicallasers. I decided to leave the pack to work on microwave light mod-ulators. A rule-of-thumb in microwave communication systemswas that the system bandwidth could be 5% of the carrier frequen-cy. For a laser carrier at 1000-nm wavelength, or 330 THz, themodulation frequency might be as high as 16 THz. This high fre-quency was out of the question then and we are still not there, butI did look for means of reaching 10 GHz modulation frequenciesusing the linear electro optic effect in KH2PO4. I worked on theelectro optic modulators for about 15 years, exploring materials anddevice physics. Bell Labs was the perfect venue. In the Researchdepartment, we had experts in all aspects of science and technolo-gy, and I collaborated with many. The most practical electro opticmaterial turned out to be LiNbO3, which was being grown andstudied by Kurt Nassau in the Murray Hill lab. One importantinvention of mine (with Ron Schmidt) was the titanium-diffusedLiNbO3 waveguide and modulator, which has been used in manycommercial telecom systems.

Afterwards, I was able to find other interesting research topics,such as semiconductor lasers, birefringent fibers and all-opticalnetworks. In 1984, I was promoted to Head of the PhotonicsNetworks and Components Research Department. In this job, Iwas able to mentor and support some very creative people. As theresult of an anti-trust agreement, 1984 was also the year of thedivestiture of AT&T’s Bell System into local and long distanceservice providers. We had to adjust to a deregulated, competitivebusiness environment. I retired from Bell Labs in 1996, the year ofa further separation into the long distance carrier AT&T and theequipment vendor Lucent, which included Bell labs.

“Reflections on a Career in Photonics”Ivan P Kaminow; UC Berkeley

Column by LEOS Leaders

[email protected]://WWW.EECS.BERKELEY.EDU

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In 1996, a confluence of events was brewing the “telecom bub-ble”. Four different technologies happened to mature at about thesame time: optical fiber communications, the personal computer,the Internet and the Web browser. Investors and entrepreneurialengineers spawned an era of “irrational exuberance” in search offame and fortune in Information Technology (IT). The bubbleburst in March 2001, as measured by a peak in the NASDAQstock index, with a severe loss of jobs and wealth.

The old Bell Labs research department comprised about1200 researchers nestled in a much larger development depart-ment, which, in turn, was nurtured in the bosom of the nation-wide Bell System monopoly, entrusted by the government toprovide reliable telephone service to the US. Unfortunately,when global competition became the norm, the staid telephonementality was no match for the nimble and aggressive mindsetof the new IT competitors. The academic atmosphere and inno-vative motivation that defined Bell Labs Research was no longerviable in the absence of monopoly funding. Today a smaller,more reactive Bell Labs survives as a component of the Alcatel-Lucent merger. Looking back now, I was very lucky to haveenjoyed the golden years of Bell Labs. I owe them my gratitudefor their generosity.

Over the years, I have benefited from many happy coincidencesand lucky choices. Indeed, luck plays an important part in any career.Still, luck is not enough, I had to be in the right places at the righttimes in order to have a chance to seize these opportunities. As theold saying goes: it takes luck and pluck.

BiographyIvan Kaminowretired from BellLabs in 1996 aftera 42-year career( 1 9 5 4 - 1 9 9 6 ) ,mostly in lightwaveresearch. At BellLabs, he did semi-nal studies on elec-tro optic modula-tors and materials,

Raman scattering in ferroelectrics, integratedoptics (including titanium-diffused lithiumniobate modulators), semiconductor lasers(including the DBR laser, ridge waveguideInGaAsP laser and multi-frequency laser),birefringent optical fibers and WDM light-wave networks. Later, as Head of the PhotonicNetworks and Components ResearchDepartment, he led research on WDM com-ponents (including the erbium-doped fiberamplifier, waveguide grating router and thefiber Fabry-Perot resonator), and on WDMlocal and wide area networks. Earlier (1952-1954), he did research on microwave antennaarrays at Hughes Aircraft Company.

After retiring from Bell Labs, he served asIEEE Congressional Fellow on the staffs ofthe House Science Committee and the

Congressional Research Service (Science Policy Research Division)in the Library of Congress. From 1997 to 1999, he returned toLucent Bell Labs as a part-time Consultant. He also establishedKaminow Lightwave Technology to provide consulting services totechnology companies, and to patent and litigation law firms. In1999 he served as Senior Science Advisor to the Optical Society ofAmerica. He received degrees from Union College (BSEE), UCLA(MSE) and Harvard (AM, Ph.D.). He was a Hughes Fellow atUCLA and a Bell Labs Fellow at Harvard. He has been VisitingProfessor at Princeton, Berkeley, Columbia, and the University ofTokyo, and Kwangju University (Korea). Currently, he is AdjunctProfessor in EECS at University of California, Berkeley, where hehas been teaching since 2004. He has published over 240 papers,received 47 patents, and has written or co- edited 5 books, the mostrecent being “Optical Fiber Telecommunications IV A&B,” co-edited with Tingye Li and published in March 2002. “Optical FiberTelecommunications V A&B,” co-edited with Tingye Li and AlanWillner will be published in March 2008.

Kaminow is a Life Fellow of IEEE and Fellow of APS andOSA. He is the recipient of the Bell Labs DistinguishedMember of Technical Staff Award, IEEE Quantum ElectronicsAward, OSA Charles Townes Award, IEEE/LEOS/OSA JohnTyndall Award, IEEE Third Millennium Medal and UnionCollege Alumni Gold Medal. He is a member of the NationalAcademy of Engineering, a Diplomate of the American Boardof Laser Surgery, and a Fellow of the New York Academy ofMedicine.

Ivan Kaminow

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organizing societies – OSA, IEEECommunications Society and LEOS –that competition to present papers hasalways been healthy and quality hasremained high. Moreover, even intimes of financial stringency (whichare by no means over) industry hascontinued to send delegates to OFC,valuing the education, training andprofessional interactions associatedwith the event.

Optical communications is oneindustry sector where LEOS plays aleading role, and it does so in coopera-tion with other societies both withinand outside IEEE. Another event thatis taking place at OFC is the secondLEOS Strategic Planning Workshop.Although this will only be attended bya handful of individuals, its delibera-tions are likely to be important for thefuture development of LEOS. I wroteabout the first of these meetings in theFebruary column and described howLEOS had already made changes to themembership administration to reflectthe priorities set by those attendingthe Strategic Planning Workshop lastyear. This year’s workshop will contin-

ue to develop a holistic view of theSociety’s objectives and follow this bydefining specific actions within andcutting across the responsibilities ofindividual Vice-Presidents.

It is always dangerous to predictthe outcome of a future event, but onearea where LEOS is likely to decide tofocus effort is in building more linkswith users of photonics technology.Photonics is a truly pervasive technol-ogy, covering areas as diverse as weld-ing and cutting systems, printing,medical, avionics, military anddefense, displays, solid state lighting,solar power and communications. Inthe last of these areas, and undoubted-ly in some of the others, LEOS canjustifiably claim to be a world leader.

I believe LEOS can and should buildactivity in more application areas. Inmost cases we can do this from the solidbase provided by existing conferences,the summer and winter series of topicalmeetings, and sessions in the LEOSAnnual Meeting. Furthermore, theissue of broadening into more areas ofapplication is an issue of serving theLEOS membership. Two thirds of our

members currently work in industry,but, with the exception of OFC, themajority of those attending our confer-ences are academics. A similar situationapplies to our volunteers – the composi-tion of the Board of Governors and mosttechnical committees is almost directlyinverted from that of our membership.

Of course the Strategic PlanningWorkshop has yet to take place, and itwill set its own priorities and actions.Assuming we do decide to focus onmore fields of application, I believeOFC provides an outstanding modelfor the way forward. It is an industri-ally focused meeting recognized inter-nationally as being of the highestquality. Its participants include alarge fraction from industry. Its foun-dations are based on collaborationwith other societies.

Whatever priorities emerge fromthe workshop, I look forward to dis-cussing them with the entire LEOScommunity, in this Newsletter, atLEOS meetings and via e-mail. Pleasedo not hesitate to contact me if youhave ideas for the future shape of theSociety.

President’s Column

(continued from page 3)

“Nick” Cartoon Series by Christopher Doerr

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News

Graduate Student Fellowship ProgramThe IEEE Lasers & Electro-Optics Society established the Graduate Student Fellowship Program to provide GraduateFellowships to outstanding LEOS student members pursuing graduate education within the LEOS field of interest (electro-optics, lasers, photonics, optics, or closely related fields). Up to twelve Fellowships of $5000 each will be awarded, based onthe student membership in each of the main geographical regions:

Americas - Europe/Mid-East/Africa - Asia/PacificPrize: Up to twelve Fellowships of $5,000 each will be awarded every year. A travel grant of up to $2,500 towards traveland lodging expenses plus a complimentary conference registration, will be available to each Fellowship recipient to attendthe LEOS Annual Meeting for the award presentation.

Eligibility: Fellowship applicants must be an IEEE LEOS student member pursuing a graduate education within the LEOSfield of interest. Students should normally be in their penultimate year of study at the time of application and be planningto submit their thesis on a timescale of 6 to 18 months after the application is submitted (i.e. those applying in May 2008would normally expect to defend their thesis during 2009).

Schedule: In a given year, application packages will be due at the LEOS Executive Office by 30 May and recipients will benotified by 30 July of the same year. The Fellowships will be presented at the LEOS Annual Meeting.

2008 IEEE/LEOS Award Reminders!!The deadline for submitting nomi-nations for the following awards is30 April.

William Streifer ScientificAchievement Award

Engineering Achievement Award

Aron Kressel Award

Distinguished Service Award

The IEEE/LEOS William StreiferScientific Achievement Award isgiven to recognize an exceptional singlescientific contribution that has had a sig-nificant impact in the field of lasers andelectro-optics in the past 10 years. It maybe given to an individual or to a group fora single contribution of significant workin the field. No candidate shall have pre-viously received a major IEEE award forthe same work. Candidates need not bemembers of the IEEE or LEOS.

The IEEE/LEOS EngineeringAchievement Award is given to

recognize an exceptional engineer-ing contribution that has had a sig-nificant impact on the developmentof laser or electro-optic technologywithin the past 10 years. It may begiven to an individual or to a groupfor a single contribution of signifi-cant work in the field. No candi-date shall have previously received amajor IEEE award for the samework. Candidates need not be mem-bers of the IEEE or LEOS.

The IEEE/LEOS Aron KresselAward is given to recognize those indi-viduals who have made important con-tributions to opto-electronics devicetechnology. The device technologycited is to have had a significant impacton their applications in major practicalsystems. The intent is to recognize keycontributors to the field for develop-ments of critical components, whichlead to the development of systemsenabling major new services or capabil-ities. These achievements should havebeen accomplished in a prior timeframe sufficient to permit evaluation of

their last impact. The work cited couldhave appeared in the form of publica-tions, patents, products, or simply gen-eral recognition by the professionalcommunity that the individual cited isthe agreed upon originator of theadvance upon which the award decisionis based. The award may be given to anindividual or group, up to three innumber.

The IEEE/LEOS DistinguishedService Award was established to rec-ognize an exceptional individual contri-bution of service which has had signifi-cant benefit to the membership of theIEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Societyas a whole. This level of service will ofteninclude serving the Society in severalcapacities or in positions of significantresponsibility. Candidates should bemembers of LEOS.

The list of previous winners andnomination forms can be found onthe LEOS Home Page http://www.i-LEOS.org.

See page 25 for Nomination Form forIEEE/LEOS awards

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News (cont’d)

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2009 TyndallAward, which will be presented at OFC/NFOEC 2009.

This award, which is jointly sponsored by the IEEELasers and Electro-Optics Society and the Optical Societyof America, is presented to a single individual who hasmade outstanding contributions in any area of lightwavetechnology, including optical fibers and cables, the optical

components employed in fiber systems, as well as thetransmission systems employing fibers. With the expan-sion of this technology, many individuals have becomeworthy of consideration.

For more information contact [email protected] orcheck the LEOS web for more details: www.i-leos.org –click Awards.

2009 Tyndall Award Nominations

Petition for Candidates for Election to the LEOS Board of GovernorsPetitions for candidates for the nextLEOS Board of Governors electionmust be received by the LEOSExecutive Office no later than 15

April 2008. The Petition must bearthe signatures of one percent of themembers of LEOS as of 31 December2007 and an indication by the candi-

date of his/her willingness to serve ifelected. Printed name, signature andIEEE member number are requiredfor all individuals signing the petition

Fellowship Application Package Requirements: • Cover letter to include name, address, email, IEEE member number, expected date of submission of the thesis, names

and contact information of two references. • A one-page CV, including all degrees received and dates. • One copy of educational transcripts. • A 300-word statement of purpose describing the student’s research project and interests. The statement is to include the

background to the project, what the student has achieved so far and how the research will be continued and developedby the student over the rest of the project

• A list of the student’s publications with the most significant paper indicated and a 100-word description of the signifi-cance of the paper.

• Two reference letters from individuals familiar with the student's research and educational credentials. • Note that additional information and submissions over the specified word count will not be forwarded to the evaluating

committee.

Guidelines have been established for the 2008 application process. Please check the LEOS web for more details (www.i-leos.org).Submission information is now available

For more information contact: [email protected]

Deadline: 10 August 2008

The twenty-first Congress of ICO will meet in Sydney,Australia at the ICO-21 Congress, July 7-10, 2008. The

lemma of the congress is: Optics for the 21st century. Formore information: http://www.ico-optics.org/

ICO

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News (cont’d)

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News (cont’d)

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News (cont’d)

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Career Section

The Young Investigator Award was established to honor an individual who has made outstanding technical con-tributions to photonics (broadly defined) prior to his or her 35th birthday. Nominees must be under 35 years ofage on September 30th of the year in which the nomination is made. Candidates need not be members of theIEEE or LEOS.

José Azaña received the Telecommunication Engineer degree (six years engineering program) and Ph.D.degree from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain, in 1997 and 2001, respectively. Hecompleted part of his Ph.D. research at the University of Toronto (Canada) and University of California,Davis (USA).

From September 2001 to mid 2003 he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at McGill University (Montreal, Canada).In 2003, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor at Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) in Montreal. Hewas promoted to Associate Professor in 2006. His research interests focus on fiber and integrated technologies for ultrafastoptical signal processing and optical pulse shaping, for various applications, including optical telecommunications, ultrafastmetrology, biomedical imaging and microwave waveform generation and manipulation. His research work has resulted inmore than 150 publications in top scientific and engineering journals and leading conferences, including more than 80 pub-lications in high-impact ISI journals and various (co-)invited presentations.

Prof. Azaña is a member of IEEE and OSA. He has served as a Guest Editor of the only two monographs entirely devotedto the emerging area of Optical Signal Processing, published by EURASIP Journal of Applied Signal Processing (2005) andIEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology (2006). Prof. Azaña was awarded with the XXII national prize for the “best doc-toral thesis in data networks” from the Association of Telecommunication Engineers of Spain (2002) and with the “extraor-dinary prize for the best doctoral thesis” from his former university, UPM (2003). He is also the recipient of two StrategicProjects grants (2004 and 2007 competitions) by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

2008 IEEE/LEOS Young Investigator Award Recipient:Jose Azana

José Azaña

The IEEE David Sarnoff Award was established in 1959 through agreement between the RCA Corporationand the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and continued by the Board of Directors of the IEEE.In 1989, sponsorship of the award was assumed by the Sarnoff Corporation. It may be presented each yearto an individual or team up to three in number for exceptional contributions to electronics. Recipientselection is administered through the Technical Field Awards Council of the IEEE Awards Board.

James J. Coleman is an expert in laser design and leader in the field of optoelectronics. He is cur-rently the Intel Alumni Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His study of strain-layered lasers led to the development of the

2008 IEEE David Sarnoff Award Recipient:James Coleman

James J.Coleman

The IEEE Lasers & Electro-Optics Society announced the winners of the IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Award for 2008. TheAward will be presented during the Plenary Session at CLEO/QELS 2008 to:

Jeffrey H. Shapiro and Horace P. Yuen – “for pioneering and seminal contributions to the theory of the generation, detection, andapplications of novel states of light.”

For more information on the award, check the LEOS web site (www.i-LEOS.org).

2008 IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Award Winners

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Career Section (cont’d)

Amr S. Helmy is anAssistant Professor inthe department ofElectrical and Com-puter Engineering atthe University ofToronto. Prior to hisacademic career, heheld a position at

Agilent Technologies Photonic Devices,R&D division, in the UK between 2000and 2004. At Agilent his responsibilitiesincluded developing distributed feed-back lasers, monolithically integratedlasers, modulators and amplifiers in InP-based semiconductors. He also devel-oped high-powered submarine-class 980nm InGaAs pump lasers. He received hisPh.D. and M.Sc. from the University ofGlasgow with a focus on PhotonicFabrication Technologies, in 1999 and1994 respectively. He received his B.Sc.from Cairo University in 1993, inElectronics and TelecommunicationsEngineering.

For his Graduate studies, Amr hasbeen awarded the Francis MorrisonAward form the University of Glasgow.In 2007 he was awarded an EarlyResearcher Award from the Ministry ofResearch and Innovation in Ontario-Canada for his leading work on nonlin-ear frequency conversion in III_V semi-conductors. His research interestsinclude photonic device physics andcharacterization techniques, withemphasis on nonlinear optics in III-Vsemiconductors; applied optical spec-troscopy in III-V optoelectronic devicesand materials; III-V fabrication andmonolithic integration techniques.

Amr is a senior member of the IEEEand a member of the Optical Society ofAmerica. He has served as the Chair ofthe Nano-technology Sub-committee inthe IEEE Communications Society since2005, as the Associate Editor - Canadafor the IEEE Laser and Electro-OpticsSociety Newsletter since 2006 and iscurrently the Chair of the OpticalMaterials and Processing Sub-commit-tee for the same society.

As the VP membership Amr aims tooverhaul membership benefits withinLEOS and realign the society to betterserve the current and emerging needs ofits members from academia, industryand otherwise.

Alwyn Seeds wasborn in Amer-sham, near London,England in 1955. Heread Electronics atChelsea College (nowpart of King’sCollege), Universityof London and

received the BSc degree with First ClassHonours in 1976. He moved toUniversity College London (UCL) tocarry out research on the optical controlof avalanche diode oscillators, receivingthe PhD degree for this work in 1980.From 1980 to 1983 he was a StaffMember at Lincoln Laboratory,Massachusetts Institute of Technology,where he worked on GaAs monolithicmillimetre-wave integrated circuits foruse in phased-array radar. He returned toEngland in 1983, to take up a lectureshipin telecommunications at Queen Mary

College, University of London, movingto UCL in 1986, where he is nowProfessor of Opto-electronics and Head ofthe Department of Electronic andElectrical Engineering. He has publishedover 250 papers (more than 60 of theminvited) on microwave and opto-electron-ic devices and their systems applicationsand filed 10 patents in this area. He wasawarded the DSc degree of the Universityof London in 2002 for his research inmicrowave photonics. His currentresearch interests include THz photonics,tuneable semiconductor lasers, quantumconfined optical modulators, optical con-trol of microwave devices, mode-lockedlasers, optical phase-lock loops, opticalfrequency synthesis, broadband wirelessover fibre access systems, uncooled denseWDM technologies and non-linear pro-cessing in optical transmission.

Alwyn Seeds has been a ProgramCommittee member for the LEOSAnnual Meeting since 2002 and wasSub-committee Chair for MicrowavePhotonics for 2007, he was a ProgramCommittee member for the 2006 IEEELEOS/MTT International TopicalMeeting on Microwave Photonics(MWP) and is an Advisory Committeemember for the IEEE/IEICE Asia-Pacific Microwave Photonics Meetings.He served as Program Chair for the2006 IEEE LEOS/EDS IndiumPhosphide and Related MaterialsConference, as Co-Chair for the 2005LEOS Summer Topical Meetings, aseditor of Special Issues in MicrowavePhotonics for the IEEE/OSA Journal ofLightwave Technology and IEEEJournal of Selected Topics in Quantum

Board of Governors New Vice Presidents:

Amr S. Helmy

Alwyn Seeds

980 nm pump laser used throughout fiber-optic telecommunications systems. Prior to his current position, Dr.Coleman worked at Rockwell International, where he helped develop the metalorganic chemical vapor deposition(MOCVD) process used to grow III-V semiconductor lasers and photonic devices, which are used for optical stor-age and medical applications. An IEEE Fellow and co-author of 375 journal publications and 7 patents, Dr.Coleman has received several awards and honors, including the IEEE William Streifer Scientific AchievementAward and was an IEEE LEOS Distinguished Lecturer. He holds a Bachelor’s of Science, Masters of Science andDoctorate, all in Electrical Engineering, from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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Career Section (cont’d)

The 2007 International SemiconductorDevice Research Symposium (ISDRS)was held at the Stamp Student Unionof the University of Maryland, CollegePark, on December 12-14, 2007. Thisstudent-centric technical symposiumheld in the Washington, DC areaimmediately following the IEDM wasattended by more than 360 people rep-resenting 25 states and 27 countries.Technical areas included wide-bandgapmaterials and devices, optoelectronics,sensors and biosensors, nanoelectronics,space applications, oxides anddielectrics, and modeling and simula-tions. Four parallel sessions included330 contributed, invited, and plenarypresentations. The plenary session hadthree excellent presentations by: 1) Dr. Robert Chau, Intel Corporation,

“The Challenges and Opportunitiesof Emerging Nanotechnology forFuture VLSI Nanoelectronics”,

2) Dr. Mark S. Lundstrom, Purdue

University, “The Ultimate MOSFETand the Limits of Miniaturization”and

3) Dr. Mark Rosker, Defense Advanced

Research Projects Agency (DARPA),“The Coming Revolution in RFElectronics.”Dr. Dieter Schroder, Professor of

Electrical Engineering at the Universityof Arizona was presented the van der ZeilAward for his distinguished career as aneducator and researcher. The financialsponsors of the Symposium are the AirForce Office of Scientific Research, theNational Science Foundation, theNational Institute of Standards andTechnology, the Army Research Office,the Electrical and ComputerEngineering Department of theUniversity of Maryland, and theNanocenter at the University ofMaryland. The Symposium is under thetechnical sponsorship of the IEEEElectron Devices Society and the IEEELasers and Electro-Optics Society.Selected papers from the symposiumwill be published in a special edition ofthe journal Solid-State Electronics.

2007 International Semiconductor DeviceResearch Symposium (ISDRS)

2008 IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award Winners

Photograph of Symposium Chair Dr. PhillipE. Thompson presenting 2007 van der ZielAward to Dr. Dieter Schroder, Professor ofElectrical Engineering at the University ofArizona, for his distinguished career as aneducator and researcher

The 2008 IEEE Donald G. Fink PrizePaper Award, sponsored by IEEE LifeMembers Committee, will be present-ed to Thomas J. Naughton (LEOSmember), Bahram Javidi (LEOSmember), Yann Frauel and Enrique

Tajahuerce for their paper entitled,"Three-Dimensional Imaging andProcessing Using ComputationalHolographic Imaging", Proceedingsof the IEEE, Volume 94, No.3, March2006.

The award will be presented duringthe Awards Banquet at the LEOSAnnual Meeting (November 9-13,Newport Beach, CA). Our congratula-tions to all of the winners!

Electronics, as Program Chair, GeneralChair and Steering Committee Chairfor the IEEE LEOS/MTT MWP meet-ing series, as Special Session andWorkshop Organiser for the IEEE/OSAOFC conference, as a Short CoursePresenter for both ECOC and OFC andas a committee member of the UKRILEOS/MTT/APS Joint Chapter.

In addition to his LEOS activitiesAlwyn Seeds has served as Chairman of

the Photonics Professional Network ofthe Institution of Engineering andTechnology (UK), is a Fellow of theRoyal Academy of Engineering, an IEEEFellow and a Liveryman of theWorshipful Company of Engineers. Heis a co-founder of Zinwave Inc., a manu-facturer of wireless over fibre systems,and a director of or consultant to a num-ber of other companies.

Outside work Alwyn Seeds is inter-

ested in music, particularly opera andchurch music, audio technology and thecultural and social pleasures of living incentral London with his wife, Angelaand teenage daughter, Caroline.

As Vice-President for TechnicalAffairs Alwyn Seeds hopes to contributeto growing LEOS activity in emergingareas of photonics working with theother VPs and the LEOS TechnicalCommittees.

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Membership Section

There are many benefits to becoming an IEEE Senior Member:• The professional recognition of your peers for technical and professional excellence• An attractive fine wood and bronze engraved Senior Member plaque to proudly display.• Up to $25 gift certificate toward one new Society membership.• A letter of commendation to your employer on the achievement of Senior member grade

(upon the request of the newly elected Senior Member.)• Announcement of elevation in Section/Society and/or local newsletters, newspapers and notices.• Eligibility to hold executive IEEE volunteer positions.• Can serve as Reference for Senior Member applicants.• Invited to be on the panel to review Senior Member applications.

The requirements to qualify for Senior Member elevation are, a candidate shall be an engineer, scientist, educator, technical execu-tive or originator in IEEE-designated fields. The candidate shall have been in professional practice for at least ten years and shall haveshown significant performance over a period of at least five of those years.”To apply, the Senior Member application form is available in 3 formats: Online, downloadable, and electronic version. Formore information or to apply for Senior Membership, please see the IEEE Senior Member Program website:http://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/md/smprogram.html

The following individuals were elevated to Senior Membership Grade thru January - February:

Ali AdibiCraig A. Armiento

Wallace C.H. ChoyArjun Kar-Roy

Stan LumishMarek Z Barylak

Tony F. HeinzKostantyn V. Ilyenko

Daniel M. KuchtaNikolai M. Stelmakh

Benefits of IEEE Senior Membership

New Senior Members

VViissiitt tthhee LLEEOOSS wweebb ssiittee ffoorr mmoorree iinnffoorrmmaattiioonn::

wwwwww..ii--LLEEOOSS..oorrgg

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Conference Section

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Conference Section (cont’d)

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Publication Section

JOSA B/JLT – NEW FEATURE ANNOUCEMENTSLOW LIGHT AND ITS APPLICATIONSSubmission Deadline: April 15, 2008

The Optical Society of America and IEEE-LEOSare soliciting original papers for a feature issue coor-dinated between the Journal of the Optical Society ofAmerica B and the Journal of Lightwave Technology onfundamental and applied aspects of slow light that isto be published in December 2008. This joint issuebetween the two journals reflects the tremendousbreadth of the field.

We have been accustomed to thinking of the speed of lightas being a fundamental constant, as it is for propagationthrough vacuum, or of having a value close to the vacuumspeed, as when light propagates through ordinary optical mate-rials. Yet it has recently become clear that tools exist that canallow one to slow down, speed up, or even completely stop lightpropagation. This realization has had a profound impact on theoptics community, both from the point of view of fundamentalscience and in that it has led to the exploration of a number ofpractical applications within modern optical technology.

The goal of this feature issue is to define the stateof the art in slow light. The following is a representa-tive and nonexclusive list of areas in which papers aresolicited:

Physics of Light Control• Electromagnetically induced transparency• Coherent population oscillations• Four-wave mixing and parametric processes• Absorption or gain saturation• Stimulated Brillouin and Raman scattering• Passive and active manipulation in periodic structures

and resonators• New schemes and physical effects

Materials and Engineered Structures for Light Control• Photonic crystals and other periodic structures• Metamaterials, including plasmonic structures• Optical fibers including holey fibers• Semiconductor nanostructures, including quantum wells

and quantum dots• Saturable optical amplifiers and absorbers• BEC, cold atoms, and hot atomic vapors• Crystals and other solid-state materials

Applications• Optical communications; all-optical buffers, routers, etc.

• Microwave photonics; microwave filters, and phasedarray systems

• Sampling systems• Sensors and improved measurement systems• Figures of merit and fundamental limitations• Coherent processing including quantum information

processing with slow light• Other applications

The table of contents for the complete coordinated featureissue will be published in both journals. The feature issueof the Journal of the Optical Society of America B (JOSA B)will contain papers related to the fundamental physicalprocesses related to generation of slow light. The com-panion issue in the Journal of Lightwave Technology (JLT)will focus on papers dealing with devices, applications,and engineering-related aspects of slow light.

Manuscripts must be prepared in standard format foreither JOSA B or JLT and submitted to the correspon-ding websites; see Information for Contributorsinstructions in any recent issue. Each paper should beidentified as a Slow Light feature paper. Please submityour manuscript electronically and select "Slow Lightand Its Applications" in the appropriate field of theelectronic submission form.

JOSA B Submission InstructionsThe OSA Style Guide for manuscript preparation can befound at (http://josab.osa.org/submit/style/jrnls_style.cfm).Instructions for electronic manuscript submission can befound at (http://josab.osa.org/journal/josab/author.cfm)

JLT Submission InstructionsPlease submit your paper online at: http://mc.manuscript-central.com/leos-ieee(Manuscript Type: ‘Slow Light’) Instructions for manuscriptpreparation and electronic submission via ManuscriptCentral can be found at http://www.ieee.org/web/publica-tions/authors/transjnl/index.html.

Since a manuscript must be prepared according to the sub-mission procedures of the particular journal, potential authorsmay wish to consult with the Coordinating Editor before sub-mitting their paper. Papers selected for each of the two jour-nals will appear separately in the respective print and onlineeditions, but they will also appear together as a virtual specialissue accessible from the JOSA B and JLT websites. Eachpaper should be submitted to one journal only.

Call for Papers

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Publication Section (cont’d)

Feature Editors

Robert W. Boyd, Coordinating Guest EditorUniversity of RochesterRochester, New York, [email protected]

Gadi EisensteinGuest Editor, JLTTechnion Israel Institute of TechnologyHaifa, [email protected]

Lene HauGuest Editor, JOSA BHarvard UniversityCambridge, Massachusetts, [email protected]

Susumu NodaGuest Editor, JLTKyoto UniversityKyoto, [email protected]

Hailin WangGuest Editor, JOSA BUniversity of OregonEugene, Oregon, [email protected]

Jesper MoerkGuest Editor, JLTTechnical University of DenmarkLyngby, [email protected]

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