Data centre interconnect drives coherent

• NeoPhotonics announced at OFC a high-speed modulator and intradyne coherent receiver (ICR) that support an 800-gigabit wavelength

• It also announced limited availability of its nano integrable tunable laser assembly (nano-ITLA)  and demonstrated its pico-ITLA, an even more compact silicon photonics-based laser assembly

• The company also showcased a CFP2-DCO pluggable

NeoPhotonics unveiled several coherent optical transmission technologies at the OFC conference and exhibition held in San Diego last month.

Ferris Lipscomb“There are two [industry] thrusts going on right now: 400ZR and data centre interconnect pizza boxes going to even higher gigabits per wavelengths,” says Ferris Lipscomb, vice president of marketing at NeoPhotonics.

The 400ZR is an interoperable 400-gigabit coherent interface developed by the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF).

Optical module makers are developing 400ZR solutions that fit within the client-side QSFP-DD and OSFP pluggable form factors, first samples of which are expected by year-end.

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NeoPhotonics ups the baud rate for line and client optics

• Neophotonics’ 64 gigabaud optical components are now being designed into optical transmission systems. The components enable up to 600 gigabits per wavelength and 1.2 terabits using a dual-wavelength transponder.    

• The company’s high-end transponder that uses Ciena’s WaveLogic Ai coherent digital signal processor (DSP) is now shipping.  

• NeoPhotonic is also showcasing its 53 gigabaud components for client-side pluggable optics capable of 100-gigabit wavelengths at the current European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) show being held in Rome.  

NeoPhotonics says its family of 64 gigabaud (Gbaud) optical components are being incorporated within next-generation optical transmission platforms. 

Ferris LipscombThe 64Gbaud components include a micro intradyne coherent receiver (micro-ICR), a micro integrable tunable laser assembly (micro-ITLA) and a coherent driver modulator (CDM).

The micro-ICR and micro-ITLA are the Optical Internetworking Forum’s (OIF) specification, while the CDM is currently being specified.   

“Three major customers have selected to use all three [64Gbaud components] and several others are using a subset of those,” says Ferris Lipscomb, vice president of marketing at NeoPhotonics.

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OIF moves to raise coherent transmission baud rate

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) has started modulator and receiver specification work to enhance coherent optical transmission performance. The OIF initiative aims to optimise modulator and receiver photonics operating at a higher baud rate than the current 32 Gigabaud (Gbaud).

"We want the two projects to look at those trade-offs and look at how we could build the particular components that could support higher individual channel rates,” says Karl Gass of Qorvo and the OIF physical and link layer working group vice chair, optical.  

Karl Gass

The OIF members, which include operators, internet content providers, equipment makers, and optical component and chip players, want components that work over a wide bandwidth, says Gass. This will allow the modulator and receiver to be optimised for the new higher baud rate.

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