10G EPON SoC tip 10x more bandwidth

Atheros Communications Inc. reports the delivery of what it claims is the world's first complete 10G Ethernet passive optical networking (EPON) SoC solution for broadband access, mobile backhaul and cable uplink applications.

The solution includes a 10G optical line terminal (OLT) solution that will be used in the service provider's central office, and a 10G optical network unit (ONU) solution for customer premise equipment and cellular base stations.

Atheros, which is expanding its presence in the FTTx (fiber to the home, etc.) market, says that the end-to-end 10G EPON SoC delivers 10 times more bandwidth and greater scalability than previous fiber technologies so that service providers can better meet the increasing bandwidth demands of homes, multi-dwelling units (MDUs), businesses and cellular networks.

The SoCs also comply with the new IEEE 802.3av standard, which provides the optimal combination of performance, advanced features, and compatibility with legacy 1G EPON products. Atheros is sampling to strategic customers in the US, China and Japan for their next-generation access system solutions.

The SoCs integrate all of the media access, traffic management and switching components needed to build OLT and ONU equipment, including the 10G and 1G EPON MACs, a MIPS24KEc processor, configurable DDR2 and DDR3 controllers, a serializer/deserializer (SerDes), and standard 10G Ethernet, SGMII and XAUI interfaces.

Atheros has also incorporated a proprietary packet processing/traffic management hardware that supports the TR-156 standard. This engine provides virtual LAN management and QoS functionality for high-speed IP traffic, which is critical for the next generation of fixed and mobile broadband networks.

The solution also suits VoIP applications. The internal processing power of the 10G EPON ONU supports multiple voice channels without an external digital signal processor, which can significantly reduce the power consumption of residential and SMBs gateways.

Atheros' OPL08865-AC2B OLT SoC and OPL08850-AC2B ONU SoC are currently sampling to customers and will soon be in volume production. A set of reference designs is also available.