Athermal AWG(Arrayed Waveguide Grating), or AAWG, is based on silica-on-silicon planar technology. CloudOptics provides a series of AAWG DWDM MUX/DEMUX with 24, 32, 40, 44, and 48 channels optional, available in standalone 19- or 23-inch 1RU/2RU rack mount and field metal box.

The Advantages of AAWG

Compared with the traditional TFF technology, AAWG has the following obvious and irreplaceable advantages.

1. AAWG has thermal stability and improved ITU-Grid accuracy that ITU-G694.1 requires for with wider transmission bandwidth, thus it can be applied to high-end areas such as Metro/long-haul DWDM optical communication system.
2. Better PMD feature (< 0.5 ps) enables it to meet the requirements of the 40G/100G DWDM transmission system and the PMD tolerance of the high speed system.
3. AAWG does not need external circuit control. As a pure passive product, it can use self-compensation technology to do self-adaptation control for external temperature. Its center wavelength is insensitive to the change of ambient temperature.

The Applications of AAWG

1. WDM-PON

2. DWDM System

The Schematic Diagram of AAWG DWDM MUX/DEMUX

DWDM system gradually became the first choice for global construction of large-capacity optical transmission network. CloudOptics launched 100GHz Gaussian AAWG DWDM MUX/DEMUX module in 2015. Its typical insertion loss is 2.8 dB and the maximum insertion loss is no more than 3.5 dB, which can provide up to 40/48 DWDM transmission channels. With flat-top AAWG DWDM modules, CloudOptics now can provide a comprehensive series of AAWG products and solutions.

Meanwhile, CloudOptics 50GHz AAWG can be widely used in the wavelength exchange and transmission system of backbone and edge networks. It can be used for DWDM modules based on TFF. Another application is the reconfigurable optical network, which is required for WSS and ROADM nodes. In DWDM system,CloudOptics can provide the corresponding EDFA and power budget, dispersion budget, PMD budget, SNR control, nonlinear effect analysis depending on the usage scenario, further strengthening its one-stop capability to provide a complete solution for DWDM system.

In the DWDM system construction, part of the frame plan is the no-power supply (like WDM-PON). And low-loss AAWG becomes the best and necessary choice, which can provide more generous power budget and longer transmission distance. In order to match the actual use requirements of customers, AAWG is rich in external encapsulation. For example, split wave module integrations can be fixed in 19-inch 1U case, which is convenient for clients to install and maintain frames uniformly. Meanwhile, CloudOptics has the capability to provide customized AAWG products and solutions aiming at the center wavelength of deviating from certain wavelength based on clients' needs, like H channel of deviating 50GHz. It is convenient for clients to subsequently expand system by adopting Interleaver and provide spare channels.