New Horizons for HCS

Recently, POFTO, the Plastic Optical Fiber Trade Organization which promotes the use of plastic optical fibers, changed its charter to include Plastic Clad Silica fibers. This new category now encompasses the HCS fibers which OFS considers its flagship product line, so we joined. Membership in POFTO has already reaped networking contacts with component suppliers, PR opportunities, and potential collaborations with other trade organizations. As an example, one of our experts on optical fiber construction and application, Adam Hokansson, presented a paper on “Performance Characteristics of HCS Fibers” at the POFTO forum at OFC this year. Our HCS fibers share many features of standard plastic fibers, such as easy termination, but they also offer advantages beyond what plastic is capable of, such as rugged environmental performance and longer distance capabilities.

We see this new acceptance of plastic clad silica fibers by POFTO as a major step forward for industrial data communications systems designers. It’s a collaborative approach that acknowledges the advantages of each medium to maximize the entire system. Designers can reach out to POFTO early in the design process and get well-balanced information that shows for very short distances (less than 3 feet), plastic is the best bet—it’s least costly. Once longer distances need to be covered, or the transmission line encounters rugged environments, such as being pulled through conduits or run in strips through high-traffic floor areas, plastic clad silica fibers, such as OFS’s HCS fibers are a slightly more expensive, but wiser choice.

FiberWire meets Fire Wire

As a direct result of our POFTO membership, OFS is also pursuing membership in the 1394 Trade Association (TA), which promotes use of a high-performance serial interface bus governed by the IEEE1394 standard. This standard can be implemented with either copper wires or plastic optical fibers, again, a collaborative rather than competitive approach to promoting that the most effective medium be used in different applications or for various subassemblies within an application. There is a draft document for plastic-clad-silica type fibers to be added to the standard. IEEE1394 also goes by the nick name “Fire Wire” -- what better partner than our own FiberWire?

We are especially convinced that our new High Bandwidth HCS fibers will be viable in many of the markets on which the 1394 TA is focusing: residential networking, industrial instrumentation, professional audio, and many innovative “smart car” automotive camera applications: keep in lane, keep distance, guide back-up maneuvers. OFS already has experience with automotive requirements from our collaboration with members of the MOST (Media Oriented System Transport) consortium.