What is Fiber Array (FA)?

Fiber Array (FA for short) is an array formed by installing a bundle of optical fibers or a fiber ribbon on the substrate at specified intervals by using a V-Groove substrate.

An optical fiber array in optical communication mainly includes a substrate, a pressing plate, and an optical fiber. Usually, a plurality of grooves are cut on the base of the substrate, and the optical fiber is fixed into the groove by the pressure plate. Optical fiber arrays have high requirements on materials and manufacturing processes.

Fiber array is usually located by the precision carved V-shaped grooves. The V-groove requires special cutting process to achieve precise fiber positioning. In order to reduce the connection fiber loss, it’s very important to accurately position the fiber core in the V-groove. After positioning, pressurize with a compactor and fix it with an adhesive to polish the end face of the optical fiber. That is the final fiber array. The substrate material will affect the optical performance of the optical fiber array, and it is necessary to use a material with a small expansion coefficient to ensure that the optical fiber array has no stress, high reliability, and no fiber displacement at high temperatures. Glass and silicon are commonly used materials, in addition to ceramics, conductive substrates and plastic substrates.

Fiber Array

The distance between the grooves of the V-shaped groove, the number of fiber channels, and the grinding angle are all customized according to the needs. The parallelism of the groove length direction between the grooves is usually within ± 0.1 degree. Most of the fibers used in FA are colored ribbon fibers, which have good bending resistance, and the colorful colors can easily distinguish the channels.

Fiber Array

Fiber arrays are usually used in planar optical waveguides, arrayed waveguide gratings, active/passive array fiber devices, micro-electromechanical systems, multi-channel optical modules, etc. Among them, the optical fiber array is one of the important components of the PLC Splitter, which can greatly reduce the loss of optical waveguide devices and optical coupling alignment.

HYC provides a variety of choices of fiber arrays, such as the number of fiber array channels, core spacing and grinding angle can be customized. HYC Co., Ltd has been focusing on the OEM/ODM manufacturing of optical passive devices for 20 years. It has a strong R&D team and production capacity. It can provide customers with one-stop customized production of optical communication passive basic device design, R&D and manufacturing. Product lines mainly include optical fiber connectors, optical fiber jumpers, PLC splitters, wavelength division multiplexers(WDM), MEMS optical switches, etc.
http://www.hyc-system.com

How to prevent unauthorized access in data centers?

In some large data centers or telecommunications rooms with complex management psersonnel or multiple departments, it’s important to ensure that the optical connection is not disconnected by some misoperations.

Lockable fiber optic connectors are products based on this security requirement.On the basis of ordinary fiber optic connectors, the lock connector adds a unique locking and independent unlocking tool, which uses to lock the dedicated fiber port.It can effectively prevent accidental inserting and removing by other personnel and improve the security of the entire network.

How does it work?
Here is two lockable connectors: SC secure lockable connector and LC secure lockable connector.

SC secure lockable connector

Secure-Keyed SC connector has unique keying details and can be locked by simply plugging it into the adapter. Once the connector is locked, only the matching color key can open and release the connector. The security lock sc connector comes in five different colors and can be used in different applications. For fiber ports that are not being used temporarily, dust caps with the same locking function have also been developed. The difference is that the dust cap can be opened with any color key.

The secure locking LC connector was developed from adding a lockable accessory to the traditional duplex connector. The removal of the security lock will not interfere with the LC adapter or cause network performance degradation.

LC secure lockable connector

Both locking LC/SC fiber optic connectors are fully compatible with conventional adapters without the need to use specific cables or adapters. It can be easily installed and removed without affecting adjacent ports.

It is especially suitable for networks with higher security levels such as military, government, finance, education, and medical treatment, which can effectively prevent unauthorized tampering.

About HYC Co., Ltd
HYC has 20 years of OEM/ODM manufacturing experience in optical passive devices in the optical communications industry and is committed to providing high-quality connected products for global data users. At present, HYC has several major product lines such as optical fiber connectors, optical fiber jumpers, PLC optical splitters, WDM wavelength division multiplexers, and MEMS optical switches. The factory has more than 1,000 employees and has strong production capabilities.

What is the IL Value of Ultra Low Loss MPO Fiber Optic Cable?

With the wide application of FTTH, the requirements for data transmission capability and speed have become more and more important in optical fiber communications, which has also led to high requirements for high-density, low-loss optical fiber connectors.

In the previous article, we introduced what are insertion loss and return loss? These two parameters are the most important indicators of fiber optic connectors. The three factors that affect fiber connection loss are the lateral shift of the fiber core, fiber tilt and gap. Among them, lateral offset is the most important factor.

For MPO connectors, the factors that affect the lateral offset are the eccentricity of the fiber hole, the gap between the fiber hole and the fiber, and the gap between the positioning pin hole and the positioning pin. By determining the dimensional tolerances required for MT sleeves, optical fibers and positioning pins, low losses can be achieved. This requires MPO connectors to have low-loss and high-reliability performance during the grinding process, polishing process, and manufacturing process of experimental testing.

So what is low loss? First, let's take a look at the standard typical insertion loss values of MPO fiber connectors.

 Optical performance index of MPO single-mode fiber connector
－The maximum insertion loss of any plug through the standard adapter and standard plug ≤0.75dB (including repeatability); return loss>30dB (MPO/PC),>50dB (MPO/APC)
－The maximum insertion loss of two plugs connected arbitrarily through the adapter ≤1dB; return loss>20dB (MPO/PC),>40dB

 Optical performance index of MPO multimode fiber connector plug
－The maximum insertion loss of any plug through the standard adapter and standard plug ≤0.35dB (including repeatability)
－The maximum insertion loss of two plugs connected arbitrarily through the adapter ≤1dB

Although the IEC standard specifies the maximum insertion loss of the connector, the typical insertion loss of most manufacturers' connectors will be below the standard value. At present, the insertion loss index of 8-core or 12-core multimode MPO connectors in the industry is generally standard loss 0.5dB, and low loss is less than 0.35dB.

MPO/MTP fiber optic connectors are an important part of high-density optical interconnect products in data centers. Today, data center cabling also requires higher-performance, higher-density MPO/MTP fiber optic cables. By improving the connector technology and manufacturing technology, HYC Co., Ltd successfully reduced the loss of the MPO connector SM single-mode 12-core to less than 0.25dB, which is 28% lower than the industry low loss value of 0.35dB; The loss of SM single-mode 24 core is reduced to 0.35dB, which is far below the industry standard and the typical loss value of MPO connectors provided by other manufacturers. It provides high-quality MPO fiber optic cables for data center 400G network construction.

About HYC Co., Ltd
HYC can provide customized high-quality MPO/MTP optical fiber cable according to customer needs. Founded in 2000, HYC has more than 20 years of OEM/ODM manufacturing experience in optical communication devices. The main products include high-density optical connectivity, PLC optical splitters, WDM wavelength division multiplexers, MEMS optical switches and other products, which are widely used in FTTx, telecommunications, 5G networks, data centers and other fields.