PMC-Sierra Announces Second-Generation GPON Devices for Worldwide Fiber To The Home Deployments

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (Nasdaq:PMCS) today announced the availability of the industry’s most highly integrated GPON devices for Fiber to the Home (FTTH) deployments. PMC-Sierra’s new GPON System-On-Chip (SoC) solutions include the PAS7401 GPON ONT, the MSP7162 GPON Gateway and the PAS5211 four-port GPON OLT. They feature PMC-Sierra’s GigaPASS™ architecture, which is already deployed in more than six million PON devices and is enhanced for WT-156 compliance. These devices are PMC-Sierra’s second-generation GPON solutions and include complete reference designs and software packages; all have proven interoperability with a wide-range of commercial GPON systems.

"By partnering with PMC-Sierra to supply industry-leading GPON access equipment, Dasan is able to leverage PMC-Sierra’s extensive experience based on millions of FTTH field deployments,” said Dr. Steve Lee, vice president and head of R&D, Dasan Networks, Inc. "Our partnership enables us to offer high-performance, low cost triple-play GPON systems based on field-proven, flexible platforms that can easily meet carriers’ current and future service requirements.”

PMC-Sierra’s ONT, Single-Family Unit (SFU), Multi-Dwelling Unit (MDU) and gateway reference designs are available for a range of user interfaces, including Gigabit Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, MoCA, POTS, USB and WiFi (see Figures 1 – 4). The designs implement advanced power saving techniques that enable the use of smaller batteries in deployments where lifeline service is required, and reduce ONT power consumption to a minimum when not in use, reducing the cost and increasing the energy efficiency of GPON networks.

The GPON OLT reference design provides complete line card functionality and implements a very low-latency upstream Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation (DBA) algorithm, as well as optical supervision features, enabling higher network efficiency and lower maintenance costs (see Figure 5).

"PMC-Sierra’s new SoCs and reference designs enable our customers to offer GPON products with differentiated network and power performance at lower cost and shorter time to market,” said Victor Vaisleib, vice president and general manager of PMC-Sierra’s FTTH business unit. "This advanced generation of GPON products, including OLT, ONT and residential gateway devices, achieves all GPON market requirements for throughput, power consumption and QoS.”

Key Features of PMC-Sierra’s GPON Solutions

The PAS7401 integrates a GPON MAC, a VoIP subsystem, an embedded controller and GigaPASS bridge performing advanced classification, queuing and filtering, with wire-speed throughput at all packet sizes (see Figure 6). Advanced power saving modes can lower PON deployment costs by reducing battery backup unit expenses. The reference designs come with complete GPON ONT software, featuring GPON functions, QoS bridging, VoIP, SIP and OMCI.

The MSP7162 leverages the PAS7401 features and adds gigabit-per-second IPv4 or IPv6 routing, Network Address Translation (NAT) and Quality of Service (QoS) features (see Figure 7). The reference design includes complete GPON gateway software featuring an RG management application, GPON functions, bridging, routing, NAT and QoS, WiFi, VoIP and SIP, and OMCI.

The PAS5211 integrates four GPON MACs, a backplane interface of either one 10Gbit/s port or four 2.5Gbit/s ports, an embedded controller and a GigaPASS bridge performing advanced classification, queuing and filtering at line-rate (see Figure 8). Sophisticated DBA accelerators and embedded optical supervision cores can lower the network deployment and maintenance costs. Its high-density OLT line card reference design comes with complete software, including GPON link management protocols, DBA algorithm and an API layer that are portable to a variety of operating system and host processors.

PMC-Sierra’s GigaPASS FTTH Architecture Delivers Wire-Speed Performance

As speeds surpass gigabit-per-second rates, an entirely new design approach is required in access network equipment, compared with sub-gigabit/second technologies such as DSL, cable and BPON. The GigaPASS architecture integrates multiple hardware-based packet processing engine subsystems to deliver wire-speed packet processing at all packet sizes, and combines them with a control processor supporting the Linux operating system and extensible middleware platforms.

Availability and Customer Support

The PAS7401, MSP7162 and PAS5211 are sampling now to PMC-Sierra’s customers. Reference Designs are also available now to leading GPON equipment manufacturers. For pricing and delivery information, contact a PMC-Sierra sales representative at http://www.pmc-sierra.com/contactSales. A comprehensive support package, including datasheets and application notes is available at www.pmc-sierra.com/ftth-pon.

About PMC-Sierra’s FTTH Family of Products

PMC-Sierra is the only supplier to support both EPON (IEEE 802.3ah Ethernet in the First Mile) and GPON (ITU-T G.984) standards. The Company’s gigabit PON products are based on the robust GigaPASS™ FTTH Architecture that achieves sustained gigabit and greater data rates while providing a powerful 32-bit programmable processing engine executing the real-time operating system, middleware, and application-specific firmware required for high performance FTTH network access functions. PMC-Sierra system-on-a-chip solutions provide end-to-end gigabit per second bandwidth solutions linking central office equipment and customer premise equipment. OLT (optical line terminal) devices connect the central office to the PON network and ONU (optical network unit) or ONT (optical network terminal) devices connect customer premises to the PON network. For more information, visit www.pmc-sierra.com/ftth-pon.

About PMC-Sierra

PMC-Sierra^® is a leading provider of broadband communications and storage semiconductors for metro, access, fiber to the home, wireless infrastructure, storage, laser printers and fiber access gateway equipment. PMC-Sierra offers worldwide technical and sales support, including a network of offices throughout North America, Europe, Israel and Asia. The company is publicly traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the PMCS symbol. For more information, visit www.pmc-sierra.com.

© Copyright PMC-Sierra, Inc. 2008. All rights reserved. PMC and PMC-SIERRA are registered trademarks of PMC-Sierra, Inc. in the United States and other countries. PMCS, GigaPASS and "Enabling connectivity. Empowering people.” are trademarks of PMC-Sierra, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.