The future of optical I/O is more parallel links
Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 7:37AM Chris Cole has a lofty vantage point regarding how optical interfaces will likely evolve.
As well as being an adviser to the firm II-VI, Cole is Chair of the Continuous Wave-Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CW-WDM) multi-source agreement (MSA).
Chris Cole
The CW-WDM MSA recently published its first specification document defining the wavelength grids for emerging applications that require eight, 16 or even 32 optical channels.
And if that wasn’t enough, Cole is also the Co-Chair of the OSFP MSA, which will standardise the OSFP-XD (XD standing for extra dense) 1.6-terabit pluggable form factor that will initially use 16, 100 gigabits-per-second (Gbps) electrical lanes. And when 200Gbps electrical input-output (I/O) technology is developed, OSFP-XD will become a 3.2-terabit module.
Directly interfacing with 100Gbps ASIC serialiser/ deserialiser (serdes) lanes means the 1.6-terabit module can support 51.2-terabit single rack unit (1RU) Ethernet switches without needing 200Gbps ASIC serdes required by eight-lane modules like the OSFP.
“You might argue that it [the OSFP-XD] is just postponing what the CW-WDM MSA is doing,” says Cole. “But I’d argue the opposite: if you fundamentally want to solve problems, you have to go parallel.”
