FiberFest 2009 Symposium Information
FIBERFEST 2009 HAS BEEN HELD. THE SYMPOSIUM PRESENTATIONS CAN BE DOWNLOADED BY NEFC MEMBERS. PLEASE CONTACT US FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
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DR. PAUL POLISHUK, INFORMATION GATEKEEPERS
“The Time is Ripe for Fiber to Replace Copper-New opportunities for Fiber”
“Major Bandwidth and Technical Applications Trends both in Systems and Subsystems Favor Fiber Optics over CopperThere are two major trends
affecting the increased use of fiber optics interconnects over copper. These are the increase in bandwidth interconnecting systems and subsystems and the needs of new applications for lower size, weight , EMI resistance, longer distances. and lower power consumption. This presentation will review bandwidth trends of major systems and subsystems as well as applications favoring the use of fiber optics over copper.”
Dr. Paul Polishuk is President and Chairman of the Board of the IGI Group of Companies, which includes IGI Consulting Inc., Information Gatekeepers Inc. and twelve overseas offices. Information Gatekeepers Inc., the original company of the Group, was founded in 1977. All companies are involved in providing information and analysis of fiber optics and telecommunications markets and technology trends worldwide. He is a well known expert on fiber optics and telecommunications technology and markets.
Since 1977, Dr. Polishuk has been involved in analyzing, studying, lecturing and promoting the fiber optics industry around the world. He continues to be involved in numerous studies involving the fiber optics, plastic optical fiber, the design of fiber optic networks SONET/SDH, video-on-demand, ATM, IPTV, fiber to the premise as well as markets for submarine fiber optic cable and and the application of fiber optics in such industries as electric utilities and defense.
A number of his recent assignments have involved mergers and acquisitions, transfer of technology, joint ventures and new fiber optic start-up ventures. Dr. Polishuk has traveled extensively and has lectured on fiber optics in China, Russia, Eastern Europe and Africa. He has advised governments on technology policy with regard to fiber optics, such as the United States, Russia, India and Bermuda. Finally, he was responsible for the design of a data network for Korea which resulted in DACOM.
Dr. Polishuk founded Horizon House International, a company formed to organize the first major telecommunications trade show in the United States. Within one year he , in February 1976, doubled the sales of the company as compared to its parent company, which had been in business for 20 years. He left Horizon House International in November 1977 to form Information Gatekeepers Inc. after successfully organizing the first International Telecommunications Exposition to be held in the US.
In August 1971, he joined the Office of Telecommunications, US Department of Commerce, as Deputy Director. He was Director of the organization’s Policy Support Division, which was responsible for Telecommunications Policy Development for the White House. Dr. Polishuk became Acting Deputy Director of the Office of Telecommunications in August 1972 and served in this capacity until February 1976 when he left Federal service. From June 1968 to June 1970, Dr. Polishuk was the first Director of Planning for the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and was Senior Research Scientist at the Laboratory from October 1956 to June 1968.
Dr. Paul Polishuk received a B.S. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from Ohio State in 1962 and 1964. In 1971, he received and S.M. in Management from MIT, after spending a year as a Sloan Fellow.
Alan Benner , IBM Research
Optics in Data Centers and Supercomputer Interconnects
As data rates rise and optical links become cost-competitive vs. copper at progressively shorter distances, new opportunities for use of optical fiber technology have appeared. This presentation will review technical designs and opportunities in fiber optical interconnect for two of these areas - interconnecting servers and switches within large-scale data centers, and interconnecting supercomputer installations - both of which may require aggregation of 10s to 100s of thousands of processors needed for cloud computing and distributed centralized processing, using optical interconnect technology.
Alan Benner focuses on the architecture, design, and development of optical and electronic networks for high-performance servers and parallel systems in the IBM Systems & Technology Group. Dr. Benner earned a B.S. at Harvey Mudd College (Physics, 1986), and M.S. and Ph.D (1992) degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Optoelectronic Computing Systems Center, studying nonlinear interactions between wavelength-multiplexed optical fiber solitons. He has also done research work at AT&T Bell Laboratories on photonic networks components. He has written 2 editions of a book on Fibre Channel, and co-authored several of the specifications for the InfiniBand architecture. He has over 20 technical publications and 25 issued patents in the U.S. and other countries.
Paul Sanders , Qorex
Overview of Fiber Optic Sensor Markets and Emerging Applications of Distributed Sensing Systems
Fiber optic sensor development began in earnest with the advent of low-loss, communications grade fiber optics in the seventies. Unlike optical communications however, the sensor industry has not enjoyed a mass-market application which has limited its growth to specialized applications in niche markets. The entry point for fiber optic sensors in these applications generally leverages some advantage of fiber optics over legacy electrical counterpart sensors. Recently, the ability of fiber optics to be configured into fully distributed sensing architectures has led to significant growth in new applications for monitoring oil and gas wells, pipelines, and electrical distribution cables as well as structural assessment in critical civil infrastructure areas such as bridges and tunnels. This paper will present the current status of the fiber optics industry, covering major military, industrial, security and oil & gas market segments, and then discuss new distributed sensor applications and their impact on future growth of this industry.
Paul E. Sanders is a founding partner of QOREX, a leading fiber optic sensor design, engineering, and systems integration firm with expertise in harsh environment systems in oil & gas and emerging geothermal wells. Prior to founding QOREX he was head of technology acquisition and special projects at Weatherford International- a major oilfield services firm and leader in fiber optic sensors in oil and gas. Paul came to Weatherford via their acquisition of CiDRA Corporation, where he was Vice President of business development with overall sales and marketing responsibility. Prior to CiDRA, he directed marketing and business development at Uniphase Telecommunication Products. Mr. Sanders studied chemistry and began his career as a chemical engineer at 3M where he held various technical and managerial roles with 3M’s specialty fiber and network products businesses. Paul is a frequent invited speaker at technical and business conferences, has published over 25 technical articles and is inventor on 27 patents.
Bill St. Arnaud, Canarie
Wind Turbines near Data Centers Using Low cost fiber Links
One of the major challenges of utilizing more renewable energy sources such as wind turbines is the inadequate electrical transmission infrastructure with which to wheel the power from the remote windmill farms and small hydro-electric facilities to potential customers. It will take many years and billions of dollars to upgrade the US electrical transmission infrastructure to meet the energy renewable targets being proposed by the state and federal governments. However another solution to this problem is rather than trying to bring power to the major users of electricity, is to instead bring the user to the electricity generating source. The telecom and data sector consumes upwards of 10% of the US entire electric production and produces up to 5% of green house gas emissions in the US. However the telecom and data center business is the one industry sector that is ideally positioned to take advantage of this opportunity of relocating their computing and telecommunication hubs to renewable energy sites interconnected back to their major markets through high speed optical networks. Not only will they be able to take advantage of low cost renewable power, these companies can earn significant revenues in carbon offsets for themselves and their customers. Because of the inherent reliability of modern telecom networks, these industry players can also connect directly to renewable energy sources and bypass the costly and unreliable electrical grid. New England is ideally positioned to capture a large percentage of this business because of the large number of proposed offshore windmill farms proposed and the wide availability of abandoned dams that were built in the early 1900s in initial phase of electrification which can now be reactivated with low cost run-of-the-river turbines. Fiber optic networks to remote renewable energy location are essential for this opportunity to become a reality.
Bill St. Arnaud is Chief Research Officer for CANARIE Inc. Canada’s Advanced Internet Development Organization. At CANARIE Bill St. Arnaud has been responsible for the coordination and implementation of Canada’s next generation optical Internet initiative called CA*net 4. He has also been the principal architect of the concept of Customer Owned Networks and User Controlled Lightpaths (UCLP) allow users to create their own Internet network topologies and peerings. Currently he is leading a Green IT initiative of encouraging carbon rewards rather than imposing carbon taxes to help reduce output of green house gas emissions, through the provision of free fiber to the home and other free Internet services and applications.
Bill St. Arnaud is member of various committees and boards. In 2002 he was featured by TIME Magazine Canada as the engineer who is wiring together advanced Canadian science. In 2005 he also won the World Technology Summit award for Communications.
Sarry Habiby , Telcordia
WDM LAN Optical Backbone Network Standards for Aerospace Applications
In this paper the author reviews status and advances in the development of WDM LAN OBN standards for aerospace applications, summarizing recent activities of the WDM LAN Task Group of the Society of Automotive Engineering (SAE). In addition, it highlights associated WDM technology and standardization challenges, and identifies opportunities for fiber optics in aircraft platforms. The goal is to enable design and implementation of a WDM LAN based on a standard that will facilitate flexible, high bandwidth, low cost, and low weight communication links on aircraft platforms spanning military, and commercial applications yet withstand the associated challenges and stringent environmental requirements.
Sarry Habiby, Senior Scientist, Applied Research, Telcordia Technologies
Education: PhD - EE (1986) and MSEE (1982) both from Ohio State University, and BSEE (1980) from Oklahoma State University. Experience: Sarry is an Optical Networking professional with over 20 years of experience in research and management of optical technology programs. He is currently active in research programs in optical transport and switching, WDM LANs systems requirements for aircraft platforms, and optical network simulation and modeling. Prior to joining Telcordia, Sarry worked at Tellium, a leading provider of optical switching solutions for telecom operators’ core networks. At Tellium, Sarry was director of a technical sales engineering team. Prior to Tellium, Sarry was a researcher at Bellcore; as a task leader for the systems engineering task in the DARPA-funded MONET project, Sarry had responsibility for network specifications of DWDM transport, optical amplifier, OADM and optical switching network elements, and requirements for systems and network interfaces. He also led simulation effort for DWDM networks, validating network specifications and requirements. Sarry has participated in SAE standards for optical networks in avionics since 2004 and leads a WDM LAN sub-group focused on avionic network requirements. Sarry is a member of the IEEE.
Tom Dudley , BU Photonics Center
The challenges faced by a Telecom guy entering Bio-photonics
The research efforts at the Boston University Photonics Center have always been focused at the intersection of photonics and life sciences. The speaker arrived here a year ago from a strictly telecom optics background. With this background in mind, the speaker intends to convey the basics you need to know to enter this sector. What exactly does biophotonics mean? What are the applications? Are there areas for growth? What are the challenges in building an organization? Is there anything unique in product life cycles or sales channels? What skills are required to be successful?
Tom Dudley is currently the Assistant Director at the Boston University Photonics Center where he focuses on strategic and business development initiatives. Prior to BU, he served as the CEO at a venture-funded technology company (Xtellus), taking a pre-revenue business to the number two position in worldwide market share for optical switching products, and in the process growing a vertically integrated manufacturing organization with world class facilities in Korea and the US.
Tom started his business career at AT&T/Lucent and spent nearly 15 years in the Microelectronics group before leaving to join a start-up (CoreTek). As VP of Marketing, Sales and Business Development at CoreTek, he executed one of the biggest success stories of the telecom boom including the merger with Nortel Networks. Subsequent to Nortel, Tom has served as an Executive-in-Residence at Atlas Venture Partners and as a full-time Consultant to TriQuint Semiconductor.
For further information, or to register, call (617) 548-NEFC or e-mail admin@fiberfest.com