Macom readies its silicon photonics platform for 400G

• Macom has announced a laser-integrated photonic integrated circuit (L-PIC) for the 400G-FR4 standard 

• The company is also working with GlobalFoundries to use the semiconductor foundry’s 300mm wafer silicon photonics process 

Vivek Rajgarhia (centre) being interviewed at OFC. Source: Macom.

Macom has detailed its latest silicon photonics chip to meet the upcoming demand for 400-gigabit interfaces within the data centre. 

The chip, a laser-integrated photonic integrated circuit (L-PIC), was unveiled at the OFC show held last month in San Diego. The L-PIC implements the transmitter circuitry for the 400G-FR4 2km interface standard.

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Intel targets 5G fronthaul with a 100G CWDM4 module

• Intel announced at ECOC that it is sampling a 10km extended temperature range 100-gigabit CWDM4 optical module for 5G fronthaul. 

• Another announced pluggable module pursued by Intel is the 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) parallel fibre DR4 standard.

• Intel, a backer of the CWDM8 MSA, says the 8-wavelength 400-gigabit module will not be in production before 2020.

Intel has expanded its portfolio of silicon photonics-based optical modules to address 5G mobile fronthaul and 400GbE.

Robert BlumAt the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) being held in Rome this week, Intel announced it is sampling a 100-gigabit CWDM4 module in a QSFP form factor for wireless fronthaul applications.

The CWDM4 module has an extended temperature range, -20°C to +85°C, and a 10km reach.

“The final samples are available now and [the product] will go into production in the first quarter of 2019,” says Robert Blum, director of strategic marketing and business development at Intel’s silicon photonics product division.

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An insider's view on the merits of optical integration

One of the pleasures of attending the OFC show, held in Los Angeles last month, is the many conversations possible in one location. The downside is that too many are cut short due to the show's hectic schedule. One exception was a conversation with Valery Tolstikhin (pictured), held in a quiet room prior to the exhibition hall's opening.

Tolstikhin is president and CEO of Intengent, the Ottawa-based consultancy and custom design service provider, and an industry veteran of photonic integration. In 2005 he founded OneChip Photonics, a fabless maker of indium phosphide photonic integrated circuits for optical access. 

One important lesson he learned at OneChip was how the cost benefit of a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) can be eroded with a cheap optical sub-assembly made from discrete off-the-shelf components. When OneChip started, the selling price for GPON optics was around $100 a unit but this quickly came down to $6. "We needed sales in volumes and they never came close to meeting $6," says Tolstikhin.

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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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ST makes its first PSM4 optical engine deliveries

Flavio Benetti is upbeat about the prospects of silicon photonics. “Silicon photonics as a market is at a turning point this year,” he says.

What gives Benetti confidence is the demand he is seeing for 100-gigabit transceivers in the data centre. “From my visibility today, the tipping point is 2016,” says Benetti, group vice president and general manager, digital and mixed processes ASIC division at STMicroelectronics.

Flavio Benetti

Benetti and colleagues at ST have spent the last four years working to bring to market the silicon photonics technology that the chip company licensed from Luxtera.

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ECOC 2015 Review - Final Part

The second and final part of the survey of developments at the ECOC 2015 show held recently in Valencia.  

Part 2 - Client-side component and module developments   

• The first SWDM Alliance module shown
• More companies detail CWDM4, CLR4 and PSM4 mid-reach modules
• 400 Gig datacom technologies showcased
• The CFP8 MSA for 400 Gigabit Ethernet unveiled

The CFP MSA modules including the newest CFP8. Source: Finisar

• Lumentum and Kaiam use silicon photonics for mid-reach modules
• Finisar demonstrates a 10 km 25 Gig SFP28, and low-latency 25 Gig and 100 Gig SR4 interfaces 

Shortwave wavelength-division multiplexing

Finisar demonstrated the first 100 gigabit shortwave wavelength-division multiplexing (SWDM) module at ECOC. Dubbed the SWDM4, the 100 gigabit interface supports WDM over multi-mode fibre. Finisar showed a 40 version at OFC earlier this year. “This product [the SWDM4] provides the next step in that upgrade path,” says Rafik Ward, vice president of marketing at Finisar. 

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Data centres to give silicon photonics its chance

Part 4: A large data centre operator’s perspective

The scale of modern data centres and the volumes of transceivers they will use are going to have a significant impact on the optical industry. So claims Facebook, the social networking company.

Katharine Schmidtke

Facebook has been vocal in outlining the optical requirements it needs for its large data centres.

The company will use duplex single-mode fibre and has chosen the 2 km mid-reach 100 gigabit CWDM4 interface to connect its equipment.

But the company remains open regarding the photonics used inside transceivers. “Facebook is agnostic to technology,“ says Katharine Schmidtke, strategic sourcing manager, optical technology at Facebook. “There are multiple technologies that meet our requirements.” 

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