(HsinChu, Taiwan) — Rafael Microelectronics has launched a 10G Trans-Impedance Amplifier (TIA) chip for the high-speed optical communication market, which complies with the mainstream standards of telecommunications such as 10G SFP+, 10G EPON, XG/XGS PON, etc. With the emergence of 5G mobile communications, cloud data centers, and home office trends, which drive huge demand for network bandwidth, governments, telecom operators and data centers in various countries are stepping up efforts to promote larger bandwidth optical communication networks, which will not only expand the use of enterprise optical fibers. The optical network has spread to applications such as fiber to the building (FTTB), 5G front-haul and large data center cloud networks. 

The optical fiber module is an important device for realizing the conversion of optical signals and electrical signals in the optical communication system. TIA is the basic component for manufacturing optical devices. The device production process first manufactures optical lasers, photo detectors and other components into optical devices, and then encapsulates the optical devices into an optical module. The optical module mainly includes two parts: transmitting and receiving. The transmitting signal in the module is composed of a laser, a driver, etc.; the receiving signal is composed of an optical receiver with a trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) and a photodetector (APD or PD), a limiting amplifier, etc. An optical receiver with a trans-impedance amplifier converts the received optical signal into a voltage signal and provides it to a limiting amplifier, and outputs data after being amplified by the limiting amplifier. 

The TIA trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) chip launched by Macro Microelectronics includes the following products:

(1) RT112 10G APD TIA: supports APD TO-CAN/ROSA applications; the chip supports 5Gbps~12.8Gbps, uses 3.3V, and the sensitivity is -33dBm (BER 10E-3) in the case of 10Gbps communication. The main feature of the product is high gain (Typical value 6K), high bandwidth and high reliability, mainly used in 10G SONET/SDH and 10G PON optical receivers.

(2) RT114 10G PIN TIA: supports PIN PD TO-CAN/ROSA applications; the chip supports 1Gbps~10Gbps, uses 3.3V, and the sensitivity is -26dBm (BER 10E-3) under 10Gbps communication. This high-sensitivity TIA with 2.5Gbps PIN PD can replace 2.5Gbps APD+TIA, which can greatly reduce ONU cost and power consumption.The RT112/114 series of chips adopt TSMC’s advanced CMOS process, which has the advantages of low power consumption and high reliability. It has ultra-high receiving sensitivity and trans-impedance gain, and can match various PD/APD optical receivers on the market. 

Ted Sun, Chief Executive Officer of Rafael Micro, said, “In the 5G era, consumers will be able to experience high-speed and massive Internet services, including remote office, telemedicine, 4K/8K video, virtual reality (VR), and autonomous safe driving. PON has become the main technology of fiber-to-the-building telecommunication networks. EPON and GPON are generally adopted by telecom operators around the world. 10G PON technology is a PON standard promoted by the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Department (ITU-T). With established PON specifications and maturity of equipment, global telecom operators have upgraded and adopted 10 GPON technology in response to new services and increased demand for bandwidth.” 

High-frequency technology capability has always been the competitive advantage of Macro Microelectronics. The series has passed the third-party certification laboratory reliability verification and fully meets the 2000hrs stress reliability requirement. The series of products have been in mass production, providing the best 10Gbps communication solutions for equipment manufacturers. 

About Rafael Microelectronics, Inc.

Rafael Microelectronics is a Taiwan fabless IC design company with broadband RF design as its core technology. Products include 4K/8K UHD TV silicon tuners, set-top box STB RF tuners, satellite LNB down-converters, HDMI, DP, USB optical transceivers and Bluetooth, Sub-GHz RF transceivers for IOT market.More information available at company website: http://www.rafaelmicro.com/ 

Contact: Cashew Chen cashew.chen@rafaelmicro.com

Rafael Micro, with RF IC design as its core technology, launched the Bluetooth 5.0 low-power (BLE 5.0) wireless transceiver RT568 for the Internet of Things (IOT) communication market. Its design is based on a simplified standard SPI interface and a main chip or a microprocessor (MCU), which can flexibly execute standard software or customer-specific software applications.

Due to the low power and reliability unique to the Bluetooth standard, related technologies have begun to expand into a variety of applications. With a simple one-click pairing between products, data communication or voice transmission can be performed. The Bluetooth Alliance has more than 20,000 members. Most mobile devices are equipped with Bluetooth. With the advent of the 5G Internet of Things era, many smart home products (such as smart light bulbs) also introduced Bluetooth technology to make Bluetooth applications more omnipresent.

Rafael Micro CEO Ted Sun said, “RT 568 is a highly customizable Bluetooth low-power 5.0 chip. The standard communication software includes Link Layer, Stack and Profiles, which are mainly executed in the microprocessor selected by the customer.” Customers can also choose to execute the protocol software developed by themselves for special applications. In this way, the RT568 becomes a highly customizable wireless RF transceiver decoupled from the main chip.

RT568 has -96dbm high sensitivity and built-in 10dbm output power. In the noisy 2.4GHz frequency band, it has outstanding anti-noise performance regardless of the transmission speed of 2Mb / s or 1Mb / s. At present, RT568 provides KGD (Known Good Die) and 3×3 QFN20 IC packages, and provides software porting, customized services and operating system support. Customers can also choose a third-party BLE software protocol stack or BLE network firmware which is connected to the RT568 through the HCI interface.

RT568 BLE chip can provide the connectivity function for a embedded 32bit MCU / SOC at the lowest cost. Not only the main technical indicators are better than major market competitors, but the PCB area required is also greatly reduced. RT568 will be a new cost-effective option in the industry to improve the system performance of IOT communication.

About Rafael Micro

Rafael Micro is a fabless IC design company in Taiwan that focuses on high-end broadband RF technology and continues to extend its core technology to digital and high-speed optical communications. Its products include TV RF chips, STB RF IC, modulator chip, satellite broadcast LNB, optical communication chip and BLE 5.0 and Sub-GHz IoT communication chip. Rafael Micro’s product lines performance, quality and engineering services quality have been highly recognized by customers.

For more information please visit website: http://www.rafaelmicro.com/