Gennum Drives 3Gig HD-SDI Over Optical

Gennum’s
IBC stand will feature the industry’s first 3Gb/s optical modules, an important
offering for broadcasters looking to embrace next-generation 3 Gbps
infrastructures.

Gennum’s
dual transmitter and dual receiver optical modules meet the new Society of
Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) 3Gb/s SDI standard, which
enables broadcast equipment manufacturers to achieve a data rate of 3Gb/s over
a single optical serial link.

“Moving to
an optical solution that supports the new SMPTE standard is very compelling for
our video broadcast equipment customers” said Alan Ferguson, director of
marketing at Gennum. “The ability to move 1080p50/60 video, HD 4:4:4 video and
HD 12 bit video formats over a single serial link—vs. dual link which is
available today—is a key step forward in cost, power and area reductions.”

The GO2922
is a dual channel optical transmitter module designed to transmit optical
serial digital signals as defined in SMPTE 297-2006. The GO2922 supports
SD-SDI, HD-SDI and 3G-SDI and contains two independent 1310nm transmitters.

The GO2920
is a dual channel optical receiver module designed to receive optical serial
digital signals and convert the optical signals to electrical serial digital
signals as defined in SMPTE 297-2006. The GO2920 supports SD-SDI, HD-SDI and
3G-SDI and contains two independent optical receivers.

Ferguson

said Gennum has worked closely
with customers and the SMPTE standard to ensure that the optical modules
robustly handle the pathological signals present in SD-SDI, HD-SDI and
3G-SDI.

Specific applications that can
leverage Gennum’s new 3Gb/s optical modules include cameras, routers, monitors,
video production switchers and distribution amplifiers.

Gennum’s
new GO2922 3Gb/s dual transmitter and GO2920 3Gb/s dual receiver are available
in a pluggable hot swappable industry standard SFP (small form pluggable)
package. A designer, for example, can create a board with one standard cage,
which can be populated with optical modules as needed, when needed.