Heavy Reading’s take on optical module trends

Part 1: Optical transceiver trends 

The industry knows what the next-generation 400-gigabit client-side interfaces will look like but uncertainty remains regarding what form factors to use. So says Simon Stanley who has just authored a report entitled: From 25/100G to 400/600G: A Competitive analysis of Optical Modules and Components.

Implementing the desired 400-gigabit module designs is also technically challenging, presenting 200-gigabit modules with a market opportunity should any slip occur at 400 gigabits.

Simon StanleyStanley, analyst-at-large at Heavy Reading and principal consultant at Earlswood Marketing, points to several notable developments that have taken place in the last year. For 400 gigabits, the first CFP8 modules are now available. There are also numerous suppliers of 100-gigabit QSFP28 modules for the CWDM4 and PSM4 multi-source agreements (MSAs). He also highlights the latest 100-gigabit SFP-DD MSA, and how coherent technology for line-side transmission continues to mature.

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The OIF’s 400ZR coherent interface starts to take shape

Part 2: Coherent developments

The Optical Internetworking Forum’s (OIF) group tasked with developing two styles of 400-gigabit coherent interface is now concentrating its efforts on one of the two.

When first announced last November, the 400ZR project planned to define a dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) 400-gigabit interface and a single wavelength one. Now the work is concentrating on the DWDM interface, with the single-channel interface deemed secondary. 

Karl Gass"It [the single channel] appears to be a very small percentage of what the fielded units would be,” says Karl Gass of Qorvo and the OIF Physical and Link Layer working group vice chair, optical, the group responsible for the 400ZR work.

The likelihood is that the resulting optical module will serve both applications. “Realistically, probably both [interfaces] will use a tunable laser because the goal is to have the same hardware,” says Gass.   

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Talking markets: Oclaro on 100 gigabits and beyond

Oclaro’s chief commercial officer, Adam Carter, discusses the 100-gigabit market, optical module trends, silicon photonics, and why this is a good time to be an optical component maker.

Oclaro has started its first quarter 2017 fiscal results as it ended fiscal year 2016 with another record quarter. The company reported revenues of $136 million in the quarter ending in September, 8 percent sequential growth and the company's fifth consecutive quarter of 7 percent or greater revenue growth.

Adam CarterA large part of Oclaro’s growth was due to strong demand for 100 gigabits across the company’s optical module and component portfolio.

The company has been supplying 100-gigabit client-side optics using the CFP, CFP2 and CFP4 pluggable form factors for a while. “What we saw in June was the first real production ramp of our CFP2-ACO [coherent] module,” says Adam Carter, chief commercial officer at Oclaro. “We have transferred all that manufacturing over to Asia now.”

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COBO: specification work nearing completion

The Consortium for On-board Optics (COBO) is on target to complete its specifications work by the year end. The work will then enter a final approval stage that will take up to a further three months.

On-board optics, also known as mid-board or embedded optics, have been available for years but vendors have so far had to use custom products. The goal of COBO, first announced in March 2015 and backed by such companies as Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Finisar and Intel, is to develop a technology roadmap and common specifications for on-board optics to ensure interoperability.

Brad Booth (pictured), the chair of COBO and principal architect for Microsoft’s Azure Global Networking Services, says that bringing optics inside systems raises a different set of issues compared to pluggable optical modules used on the front panel of equipment. “If you have a requirement for 32 ports on a faceplate, you know mechanically what you can build,” says Booth.

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600-gigabit channels on a fibre by 2017

NeoPhotonics has announced an integrated coherent receiver that will enable 600-gigabit optical transmission using a single wavelength. A transmission capacity of 48 terabits over the fibre’s C-band is then possible using 80 such channels.

NeoPhotonics’ micro integrated coherent receiver operates at 64 gigabaud, twice the symbol rate of deployed 100-gigabit optical transport systems and was detailed at the recent ECOC show.

Current 100 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) coherent systems use polarisation-multiplexing, quadrature phase-shift keying (PM-QPSK) modulation operating at 32 gigabaud. “That is how you get four bits [per symbol],” says Ferris Lipscomb, vice president of marketing at NeoPhotonics.

Optical designers have two approaches to increase the data transmitted on a wavelength: they can use increasingly complex modulation schemes - such as 16 quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) or 64-QAM - and they can increase the baud rate. “You double the baud rate, you double the transmission capacity,” says Lipscomb. “And using 64-QAM and 64 gigabaud, you can go to 600 gigabit per channel; of course when you do that, you reduce the reach.”

The move to the higher 64 gigabaud symbol rate will help Internet content providers increase capacity between their large-scale data centres. Typical transmission distances between sites are relatively short, up to 100km.

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Ranovus shows 200 gigabit direct detection at ECOC

Ranovus has announced it first direct-detection optical products for applications including data centre interconnect.

Saeid AramidehThe start-up has announced two products to coincide with this week’s ECOC show being held in Dusseldorf, Germany.

One product is a 200 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) dense wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) CFP2 pluggable optical module that spans distances up to 130km. Ranovus will also sell the 200Gbps transmitter and receiver optical engines that can be integrated by vendors onto a host line card. 

The dense WDM direct-detection solution from Ranovus is being positioned as a cheaper, lower-power alternative to coherent optics used for high-capacity metro and long-haul optical transport. Using such technology, service providers can link their data centre buildings distributed across a metro area. 

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Intel's 100-gigabit silicon photonics move

Intel has unveiled two 100-gigabit optical modules for the data centre made using silicon photonics technology.

Alexis Bjorlin

The PSM4 and CWDM4/CLR4 100-gigabit modules mark the first commercial application of a hybrid integration technique for silicon photonics, dubbed heterogeneous integration, that Intel has been developing for years.

Intel's 100-gigabit module announcement follows the news that Juniper Networks has entered into an agreement to acquire start-up, Aurrion, for $165 million. Aurrion is another silicon photonics player developing this hybrid integration technology for its products. 

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