Poly-Methyl-MethAcrilate based optical fibers with Step-Index profile and 1 mm core diameter (PMMA-SI-POF) are widely deployed in automobile infotainment systems thanks to the MOST standards that adopt them as the preferred physical medium. However, thanks to their mechanical robustness and tolerance and their ease of installation, they make a suitable medium for local networking. Unfortunately, their good mechanical characteristics have to be paid in terms of performances, since PMMA-SI-POF based systems are severely limited in both bandwidth and attenuation. We will present a review of the best research results that have been obtained at the different speeds that are defined by the Ethernet standard: 10 Mb/s, 100 Mb/s and 1 Gb/s, showing that PMMA-SI-POF can easily overcome copper performances while being smaller, cheaper, easier to install in brownfield environment. To date, the following results have been obtained: 425 m at 10 Mb/s, 275 m at 100 Mb/s and 75 m at 1 Gb/s; these results have been obtained with commercial eye-safe components, and we believe that overcoming them requires in most cases the development of a new class of components. An overview of the different modulation formats that have been adopted, the most suitable equalization techniques and the best affordable components will be given. In the end, an overview of the current commercial systems performances and the road standardization procedures are taking will be given.

Date Published: 4 February 2013
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8645, Broadband Access Communication Technologies VII, 86450Q (4 February 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2002406

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8645:
Broadband Access Communication Technologies VII
Benjamin B. Dingel; Raj Jain; Katsutoshi Tsukamoto, Editor(s)