Contributing to higher-capacity optical communications — NTT optical device AWG receives IEEE milestone recognition

The "arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) based on silica-based planar lightwave circuit (PLC)" is an optical device developed by NTT that has become widely used around the world. AWG has been recognized as an IEEE Milestone by the IEEE, the world's largest international professional organization in the fields of electrical engineering, electronics, information technology, and communications. A plaque presentation ceremony was held on February 18.

The ceremony was hosted by the IEEE Tokyo Section and held at the Palace Hotel Tokyo in Marunouchi, Tokyo, followed by a commemorative reception and lecture for those in attendance. At the ceremony, IEEE Tokyo Section Vice Chair Norihiro Suzuki delivered the opening remarks, after which 2020 IEEE President Toshio Fukuda presented the plaque engraved with "IEEE Milestone" to NTT President and CEO Akira Shimada.

This is NTT's fifth IEEE Milestone recognition. Shimada, upon receiving the plaque, stated: "As NTT, we will continue to do our best so that many more outstanding research and development achievements worthy of IEEE Milestones emerge in the future."

The IEEE Milestone is a program that honors technical achievements in the fields of electrical engineering, electronics, information technology, and communications that have been internationally acclaimed for 25 or more years since their development and have made significant contributions to the advancement of society. It was established in 1983 by the IEEE, which is headquartered in the United States.

Past honorees include technologies and facilities in the 19th century that formed the foundation of modernization, such as telephone, Edison's laboratory, and Marconi's wireless communications. In the 20th century great inventions and important technologies that underpin today's electronic information communications were honored, including television, computers, and the Internet.

In 1992, NTT developed and demonstrated AWG using silica-based PLC for the first time in the world. This breakthrough technology made it possible to handle dozens or more wavelengths simultaneously—something that had been difficult with previous wavelength multiplexers/demultiplexers—while meeting all of the requirements for optical communications use: low loss, stability, high reliability, and mass producibility. It enabled full use of the ultra-wideband capacity inherent to optical fiber.

Subsequently, NTT Electronics Corporation (now NTT Innovative Devices Corporation), to which the technology was transferred, and PIRI (Photonic Integration Research Inc.), a joint venture of NTT, Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi International Corporation, and Battelle Memorial Institute, achieved mass production of AWG wavelength multiplexers/demultiplexers in 1996. This drove the large-scale expansion of optical communications capacity through wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology, which became fully established in the latter half of the 1990s.

Today, these multiplexers/demultiplexers continue to play an important role as a core optical device used in communication networks around the world. They are also being used as a key device indispensable for high-capacity communications in the IOWN APN (All-Photonics Network) currently being advanced by the NTT Group. It is these outstanding achievements that led to this Milestone recognition.

NTT's previous IEEE Milestone recognitions are: International Standardization of G3 Facsimile (jointly with KDDI, recognized April 2012); Development and Marketing of Line Spectrum Pair (LSP) for High-Compression Voice Encoding (recognized May 2014); the Vapor-phase Axial Deposition (VAD) Method for Mass Production of High-Quality Optical Fiber (jointly with Furukawa Electric, Sumitomo Electric, and Fujikura, recognized May 2015); and the Physical Contact Connection Technology for Fiber Optic Connectors (recognized March 2021).