FIT PIC

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have long been spoken of but the technology has yet to gain widespead industry support. One company that has adopted PICs, building an optical transport platform around its design, is Infinera. Its design use two devices, a 10x10 Gbps transmitter and 10x10 Gbps receiver, implemented using Indium Phosphide technology.

Infinera has just announced a milestone in that its PICs have passed ten million hours of operation in live customer networks without a single failure. PIC technology will only grow in importance over the next several years, given the steady re-emergence of the optical component industry.

Cognitive Radio: Wireless gets smart

“We are suspicious of cognitive radio because of the hidden-terminal problem,” says William Webb, R&D chief at Ofcom. The terminal—a cellphone, for example—can be hidden because a building stands between it and the cognitive radio that is vying to use the same frequency. No amount of sensitivity by the cognitive radio’s receiver will uncover it. “You can use databases and network information between radios, but you can’t be 100 percent sure,” Webb says. Ofcom says it’s therefore inappropriate to introduce cognitive radios in spectrum owned by others—that is, unless the incumbents themselves decide they want to allow them.

IEEE Spectrum, Click here for article