Things you need to Know About PLC Splitter

 

PLC Splitter, short for Planar Lightwave Circuit Splitter, is developed based on unique silica glass waveguide process with reliable precision aligned fiber pigtail in a miniature package, providing a low cost light distribution solution with small form factor and high reliability.

 

Why Do We Need PLC Splitters?

Splitter is an indispensable component of Passive Optical Network (PON) systems. In the PON system, PLC splitter is used to distribute or combine optical signals. As widely used in FTTx (Fiber to the x, which is defined as a collective term for various optical fiber delivery topologies that are categorized according to where the fiber terminates), the splitter technology is valued with its wider operating wavelength (PLC splitter can work on 1260-1650nm wavelength, while FBT can usually work on three different operating wavelengths). PLC splitter, with its high quality performance, such as the low insertion loss, low Polarization Dependent Loss (PDL), meeting the transmission requirements of different wavelength, spectral uniformity, the average signal assigned to the user, compact structure, small volume, low cost of more points etc., is widely used and expected as an important component in many network solutions. The position of PLC Splitter in the network see Figure 1.

The position of PLC Splitter in the network

 

How Does a PLC Splitter Work?

PLC Splitter is installed in every optical network between the PON Optical Line Terminal (OLT) and the Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) that the OLT serves. The simple optical splitter is used in networks to implement BPON, GPON, EPON, 10G EPON, and 10G GPON technology. But there is something special in a WDM PON network, it will use an Arrayed Wave Guide (AWG) instead of the optical splitter. PLC splitter is based on planar Light wave circuit technology and precision aligning process so that it can divide a single/dual optical input(s) into multiple optical outputs uniformly and is denoted 1xN or 2xN. We can see the Figure 2. below, which shows the PLC splitter’s working principle.

PLC splitter's working principle

 

Types of PLC Splitters

Depending on subscriber conditions or cable length, types of PLC splitter available include 1xN and 2xN, such as 1×4, 1×8, 1×16, 1×32, etc. may be used. In addition, in order to follow clients’ different inquiry, different package are produced by the manufacturers.

 

fiber-mart recently launched the newest product of the PLC splitter producing line, which is designed in Mini plug-in Type(Figure 8.). This type of PLC splitter is specialized for plug and play splitter application, features high reliability, reduce installation time,small size, wide operating wavelength range and good channel-to-channel uniformity and provide a cost effective and space saving product suitable to the ever changing networking requirements, and now is widely used in PON networks to realize optical signal power splitting.