Features added around 400ZR aims to bring order to 400ZR+

The OIF has started a project to combine Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) technology with the 400ZR coherent interface standard.

Karl Gass400ZR is designed to transmit a 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) signal over at least 80km using coherent optical transmission.

Adding FlexE technology will enable 4x100GbE signals to also be transmitted.

Separately, the OIF has started a project to create a 96 gigabaud (GBd) coherent driver modulator specification. Such a symbol rate enables 800 gigabits of data to be sent using a single carrier.

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Microchip launches the first terabit physical layer device

Microchip Technology has unveiled a family of physical layer (PHY) Ethernet devices with a capacity of 1.2 terabits.

The Meta-DX1 PHY family comprises three devices that support three 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) channels, a dozen 100GbE channels or 24, 10GbE channels. 

“We are not aware of any PHY in the industry that supports more than one terabit of traffic,” says Stephen Docking, manager, product marketing at the communications business unit of Microchip. 

The company is also claiming another industry first in offering a PHY that supports the Open Internetworking Forum’s (OIF) Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) standard. 

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Has coherent optical transmission run its course?

Feature: Coherent's future

Three optical systems vendors share their thoughts about coherent technology and the scope for further improvement as they look two generations ahead to symbol rates approaching 100 gigabaud   

Optical transmission using coherent detection has made huge strides in the last decade. The latest coherent technology with transmitter-based digital signal processing delivers 25x the capacity-reach of 10-gigabit wavelengths using direct-detection, according to Infinera.

Since early 2016, the optical systems vendors Infinera, Ciena and Nokia have all announced new coherent digital signal processor (DSP) designs. Each new generation of coherent DSP improves the capacity that can be transmitted over an optical link. But given the effectiveness of the latest coherent systems, has most of the benefits already been achieved?

Source: Infinera

“It is getting harder and harder,” admits Kim Roberts, vice president, WaveLogic science at Ciena. “Unlike 10 years ago, there are no factors of 10 available for improvement.”

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OFC 2016: a sample of the technical paper highlights

Optical transmission technologies, Flexible Ethernet, software-defined networking, CFP2-ACOs and silicon photonics are just some of the topics at this year's OFC 2016 conference to be held in Anaheim, California between March 20th and 24th. 

Here is a small sample of the technical paper highlights being presented at the conference.

Doubling core network capacity 

Microsoft has conducted a study measuring the performance of its North American core backbone network to determine how the use of bandwidth-variable transceivers (BVTs) could boost capacity.

The highest capacity modulation scheme suited for each link from the choice of polarisation-multiplexed, quadrature phase-shift keying (PM-QPSK), polarisation-multiplexed, 8 quadrature amplitude modulation (PM-8QAM) and PM-16QAM can then be used.

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