Headquartered in Somerset, New Jersey with a lineage that can be traced back to Japanese multinational Nippon Sheet Glass, Go!Foton is a global photonics company with a strong presence in the optical communications industry. We apply our expertise to the development of advanced applications for a diversity of end uses, including connectivity solutions for telecommunications networks and imaging processes for life sciences diagnostics and research.
As a leading provider of network connectivity solutions, Go!Foton plays a major role in the implementation of next-generation wireline and wireless networks. The company’s PEACOC® platform represents an innovative optical fiber distribution management system for telecom and datacenter applications which require ultra-high capacity and density.
Several years ago, Go!Foton set out to solve a problem that had vexed builders of telecommunications networks for decades. The challenge: how to allow human fingers – often stout, sometimes clumsy- -to manipulate thousands of fragile connections between delicate hair-thin strands of optical fiber while at the same time minimizing the physical footprint of racks and cabinets loaded with equipment through which the fibers are routed – without interrupting traffic and without using special tools in the field.
An additional challenge: designing a product that would easily adapt to the network’s expanding scale and rapidly changing architecture, and especially to the relentless densification of fiber required by market-driven adoption of emerging protocols, both wired (e.g., NG-PON2 and other new access standards) and wireless (5G.)
Go!Foton’s inspiration? The ornamented train of a peacock. CTO David Chen explains: “If you look at peacocks with feathers retracted, you’d never guess what kind of mating show they can put on for peahens when they fan out. Why couldn’t we do the same thing for fiber connectors? When the fibers are passing optical signals to each other, the connectors can “hide,” but when we need to switch the connections, they can fan out just like the peacock’s feathers.” In this “switching” mode, each connector would be separated from the adjacent one with enough space between them to enable even “fat-fingered” technicians to do their job quickly and unobtrusively, while avoiding costly mistakes.
What emerged as the result of Go!Foton’s “Eureka!” moment was the development of what the company calls its “platform with enhanced access for compact optical connectors”: PEACOC.
