SSF Fiber-Optic Components Use LC Connector Interface

Five leading suppliers of fiber-optic components have committed to provide the electronics industry with new small form-factor (SFF) fiber-optic components that will use the LC connector interface, a high-density optical connector used for single- and multi-mode fiber-optic applications. Among the components IBM has scheduled for the new SFF are its LC-based multi-mode SFF pin through-hole optical transceivers for Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet applications. Lucent, in turn, is shipping the 2417 single-mode, SFF fiber-optic family of transceivers that support Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) with the LC interface. Methode's LC-based transceiver products include multi-mode and single-mode devices in MLC-25 SFF and MPDT-20 dual-port gigabit interface converter families. Sumitomo Electric Lightwave has its SCM6000 family of LC-based transceivers. And MRV Communications has a line of transceivers using Fabry Perot distributed feedback lasers operating at 1300 to 1550 nm that use the LC interface.