Best Practices for Expanded Beam Connectors in Data Centers

 

Project Chairs



Tatiana Berdinskikh, Senko



 Tiger Ninomiya, Senko

 

Call-for-Participation Webinar

Presentation from the Call-for-Participation Webinar (July 7, 2020).
 

Background

With increasing numbers of fiber optic connectors in data centers, the operational cost for connector cleaning and inspection can be substantial. High performance and low maintenance fiber optics connectors are required to reduce this cost. 

With less sensitivity to contamination and scratches, the expanded beam connector has the potential to reduce costs while maintaining high performance. Although requiring reduced cleaning procedures, the end faces still require inspection and cleaning to prevent degradation of the optical link. To date, there is no industry standard defining cleaning methods for expanded beam connectors, and no guidelines for a cleaning process have been developed.

Statement of Work & Project Statement

Objectives

This project is organized to develop industry cleanliness guidelines for the use of expanded beam connectors in data centers. Such guidelines could enable wider use of the technology and leverage significant cost savings.

This project will: 
  1. Investigate the impact of contamination on optical performance (IL / RL) of single mode and multimode expanded beam connectors.
  2. Develop recommendations on cleaning methods for single mode and multimode expanded beam connectors with different technologies based on experimental and modeling data. 
  3. Estimate the potential cost savings due to the implementation of expanded beam connectors in the data centers. The cleaning and inspection costs for expanded beam connectors and other connectors technologies, such as physical contact (PC) connectors, in the data center environment will be compared. The opportunity for earlier installation of expanded beam connectors in data center construction will also be considered.
     

Related Projects

For Information

Steve Payne, iNEMI 
steve.payne@inemi.org