Adtran broadens its OLS and access module offerings

Adtran has unveiled two products before the OFC show in San Francisco taking place at the end of the month. 

One is a 50 gigabit-per second (Gbps) SFP56 optical transceiver that uses 4-level pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM-4) for 5G front-haul and enhanced broadband applications.  

The second product is the FSP 3000 IP OLS, a compact open line system (OLS) designed for point-to-point links between sites 120km apart. 

The OLS has been developed to simplify the setting up of dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical links.    

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Silicon photonics grapples with 3D packaging demands

Hesham Taha (pictured), CEO of start-up Teramount, is more upbeat about silicon photonics than ever. But, as he outlines, challenges remain.

Hesham Taha is putting in the miles. The CEO of Teramount has been travelling to the East and West to meet with companies.

Termount is working closely with customers and partners adopting its technology that adds fibre to silicon photonics chips. 

"We're shipping units to customers and partners, and we need to be close to them as they integrate our components and address the challenges of integration," says Taha.

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Broadcom’s silicon for the PCI Express 6.0 era

Broadcom has detailed its first silicon for the sixth generation of the PCI Express (PCIe 6.0) bus, developed with AI servers in mind.

Sreenivas Bagalkote

The two types of PCIe 6.0 devices are a switch chip and a retimer.

Broadcom, working with Teledyne LeCroy, is also making available an interoperability development platform to aid engineers adopting the PCIe 6.0 standard as part of their systrems.

Compute servers for AI are placing new demands on the PCIe bus. The standard no longer about connects CPUs to peripherals but also serving the communication needs of AI accelerator chips.

“AI servers have become a lot more complicated, and connectivity is now very important,” says Sreenivas Bagalkote, Broadcom’s product line manager for the data center solutions group.

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Podcast: Reflections on the upcoming OFC 2025

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OFC Rump Session: Reimagining global comms

Source: Shutterstock

Imagine a world plunged into digital silence. No texts, calls, emails, or internet.

At this year's OFC conference in San Francisco, three teams of telecommunications experts will tackle a provocative thought experiment as part of the Rump Session: if Earth's entire communication infrastructure vanished overnight, how would they rebuild it? 

With a clean slate and ten years until implementation, the teams will outline what they consider is the ideal replacement global network.

The Rump Session's audience will then choose the best solution.

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Crossing oceans: Loi Nguyen's engineering odyssey

Loi Nguyen arrived in the US with nothing but determination and went on to co-found Inphi, a semiconductor company acquired by Marvell for $10 billion. Now, the renowned high-speed semiconductor entrepreneur is ready for his next chapter.

Loi Nguyen, high-speed semiconductor entrepreneur at Marvell and an award-winning wildlife photographer

"What is the timeline?"

It's a question the CEO of Marvell, Matt Murphy, would pose to Loi Nguyen each year during their one-on-one meetings. "I've always thought of myself as a young guy; retirement seemed far away," says Nguyen. "Then, in October, it seemed like the time is now."

Nguyen will not, however, disappear. He will work on specific projects and take part in events, but this will no longer be a full-time role.

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How CPO enables disaggregated computing

A significant shift in cloud computing architecture is emerging as start-up Drut Technologies introduces its scalable computing platform. The platform is attracting attention from major banks, telecom providers, and hyperscalers. 

At the heart of this innovation is a disaggregated computing system that can scale to 16,384 accelerator chips, enabled by pioneering use of co-packaged optics (CPO) technology.

"We have all the design work done on the product, and we are taking orders," says Bill Koss, CEO of Drut (pictured).

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