u²t started to ship its baseline MZMO series of Mach-Zehnder Modulators as an addition to its product family of GaAs based modulators, targeting applications at 40 and 100 Gbit/s. A bandwidth of up to 30 GHz and a low drive voltage of 3V and its accurate modulation characteristics are suitable for microwave photonics or other analogue applications but also for standard communications applications The new offering complements u²t's photodetector and photoreceiver products with a bandwidth of up to 100 GHz.
Modulators based on gallium arsenide technology offer the benefit of using well proven and exercised high volume fabrication processes used in the telecommunications industry. This robust manufacturing capability makes it ideal for highly integrated products, especially for complex modulation schemes such as DQPSK and DP-QPSK which form the u²t modulator product family. In common with III-V semiconductors, the devices offer more compact size but in addition GaAs allows broad wavelength operation and accurate electro-optic modulation for the higher speed and longer link length applications.
u²t started to sample its new product platform in June 2011. Production release is scheduled later in 2011.