Bookham says it is confident that the deal with Ciena marks the first deployment of a tunable-pluggable product anywhere in the world.
The size of the deal was not disclosed, but it is likely to be significant over time, as it covers all of Ciena's high-end switching and transmission systems, including the CoreDirector Multiservice Switch, CoreStream Agility Optical Transport System and CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform product families.
Bookham launched its 10 Gbit/s tunable-pluggable transceiver, the LambdaFLEX TL8000, at the OFC/NFOEC show back in February (see Bookham touts long-reach tunables). The module is similar in size to the X2 form factor, which will help Ciena to increase the density of its metro and long-haul transmission systems.
The LambdaFLEX TL8000 does not comply with any industry multi-source agreements, but Ciena says that's not a problem because it has a second source lined up.
In fact, it appears that Ciena wanted to use tunable-pluggable devices so badly that it was ready to accept a non-standard form factor, rather than wait until industry-standard modules such as XFP or XFPe become available.
"The format was a requirement from Ciena," says Yves LeMaitre, Bookham's VP of telecom sales and marketing. "We adopted the technology to help Ciena implement the pluggable tunable format and have a time-to-market advantage with the first 10G 'tunable-pluggable' solution."
Bookham isn't the only vendor working on tunable pluggable modules. JDSU previously said that it expects to introduce a tunable XFP module by the end of the year (see JDSU shrinks tunable transmitter). However, whether it can squeeze a long-haul qualified laser into the smaller package remains to be seen.
Bookham considers tunable lasers to be its most important product line, and is boosting production accordingly. "We were capacity limited in the June quarter, so we are investing in a significant increase in capacity for the next and following quarters," the company's CEO Alain Couder told sister publication compoundsemicondutor.net (see July issue).
The other area where Bookham believes it can make good money is in pump lasers for optical amplifiers. Competition in that market has shrunk to just two companies: 3S Semiconductor (the former foundry and laser business of Avanex, bought from Alcatel Optronics) and JDSU.
• Bookham will report earnings on Thursday 24 July.