Lantiq introduced a GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) System-on-Chip (SoC) with integrated optical control circuitry for Optical Network Termination (ONT) applications. Feature integration on the new FALC ON devices allows GPON ONT manufacturers to reduce Bill of Material (BOM) cost for optical components by up to 40 percent.

The power consumption of Lantiq GPON SoC based ONT equipment is 65% below the European Code of Conduct (CoC) requirements for 2011 and is lower than the currently proposed efficiency requirements for 2013. With a chip package-size of 17 x 17 mm, the devices also enable small footprint solutions. For example, a FALC ON reference design for a complete SFU (Single Family Unit) with a 1000 Base-T LAN port is smaller than a business card (50 x 80 mm).

Market researchers at Infonetics (Q2 2010) expect more than 46 million GPON FTTH subscribers by 2014 compared to 2.9 million in 2009 and the GPON ONT equipment market is expected to be US $2.5 billion in 2014.

About the family

The family includes SoC devices for multiple FTTH/FTTB applications. The FALC ON-D (PEF98010) focuses on data-only GPON SFU devices; the FALC ON-V (PEF98020) focuses on GPON voice and data SFUs, and the FALC ON-M (PEF98030) is well suited for MDU (Multi Dwelling Unit) and CBU (Cellular Backhaul Unit) applications.

All three members of Lantiq’s new GPON chipset family feature integrated burst mode Laser Driver and APD/PIN-receiver-control circuitry which allows direct interfacing to a low-cost BiDi Optical Sub Assembly (BOSA).This industry-wide unique approach allows system integrators to offer GPON ONT solutions without the need for costly and area-consuming optical transceiver modules. The combination of the optical control circuitry with its ITU-T G.984 compliant GPON MAC and its on-chip CPU enables automatic calibration and compensation of optical component variations. This leads to an efficient manufacturing process, long term stability, improved optical network robustness and overall optical system performance, as defined in the ITU-T G.984.2 standard.

The family provides up to four GE (Gigabit Ethernet) interfaces for data traffic. The integrated 10/100/1000 BASE-T Ethernet PHYs enable direct interfacing to standard magnetics for up to two 1000 BASE-T or four 10/100 BASE-T links. On-chip voice processing along with external SLIC devices enable up to four FXS ports. A embedded wire-speed network processor and hardware based traffic management flexibly support all Broadband Forum TR-156 and ITU-T OMCI G.984.4/G.988 requirements independent of CPU application processing.

FALC ON ships with a flexible software architecture which allows smooth integration into any customer environment. All three family members are supplied in 304-Pin PG-LFBGA packages. The family will begin sampling during November 2010.