NEC and Corning Achieve Record-Breaking Results in Optical Transmission Capacity

IRVING, Texas & CORNING, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NEC Corporation of America (NEC), a leading provider and integrator of advanced IT communications, managed services, biometric solutions and carrier-class communications products for optical networks, and Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW), a leading provider of optical fibers, today announced that NEC and Corning achieved record-breaking results in transmission capacity over optical fibers. The result was reported at the 2012 Frontiers in Optics/Laser Science XXVIII (FiO/LS) meeting.

“This new advance in optical fibers with 14 transmission cores is a continuation of Corning’s longstanding leadership in optical fiber innovation.”

Researchers from the NEC Labs in Princeton, NJ, and from Corning’s Sullivan Park Research Center in Corning, NY, successfully demonstrated ultra-high speed transmission with a capacity of 1.05 Petabit/s (10¹⁵ bits per second) over novel multi-core fiber (MCF) that contains 12 single-mode and two few-mode cores by employing the advanced space division multiplexing (SDM) scheme and optical multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signal processing technique.

The fiber designed by Corning researchers has cores arranged in a triangular lattice, which enables transmission over a large number of spatial modes. By combining spectral multiplexing with polarization and spatial mode multiplexing and employing multilevel modulation formats, NEC researchers achieved the total spectral efficiency of 109 bits/sec/Hz, while the aggregate transmission capacity was 1.050 Petabit/s, which is the highest capacity over a single optical fiber reported so far.

“This achievement is a continuation of NEC’s leadership in ultra-high optical transmission systems. We recently demonstrated the highest capacity over single mode optical fibers, and now we have opened new frontiers with the highest transmission capacity over any type of optical fibers,” said Dr. Ting Wang, head of optical networking research at NEC Laboratories America. “We are proud to lead industry efforts with Corning and to provide solutions that will be the foundation of the next generation of networking.”

"As the foundation of telecommunications networks, optical fiber innovation enables carriers to cost effectively keep up with ever-growing traffic demands," said Cynthia B. Giroux, Division Vice President and Research Director, Corning Incorporated. “This new advance in optical fibers with 14 transmission cores is a continuation of Corning’s longstanding leadership in optical fiber innovation."

For more information about NEC Corporation of America, visit www.necam.com. For information about NEC Labs, visit http://www.nec-labs.com/. For information about Corning Incorporated, visit www.corning.com.