Oclaro showcases its pluggable CFP2-DCO at ECOC

Multi-sourcing CFP2-DCO modules, coherent digital signal processor (DSP) partnerships, new laser opportunities and the latest on Lumentum’s acquisition of Oclaro. A conversation with Oclaro’s chief strategy officer, Yves LeMaitre.

Oclaro demonstrated its CFP2 Digital Coherent Optics (CFP2-DCO) pluggable module working with Acacia Communications’ own CFP2-DCO at the recent European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC), held in Rome.

Yves LeMaitreOclaro announced earlier this year that it would use Acacia’s Meru coherent DSP for a CFP2-DCO product.

The company also announced at ECOC the availability of a portfolio of single-mode lasers that operate over an extended temperature range.

“We see two new laser opportunities for us,” says LeMaitre. “The upgrade of the access networks and, concurrently, the deployment of 5G.”

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Lumentum jolts the industry with Oclaro acquisition

Lumentum announced on Monday its plan to acquire Oclaro in a deal worth $1.8 billion.

The prospect of consolidation among optical component players has long been mooted yet the announcement provided the first big news jolt at the OFC show, being held in San Diego this week. 

Alan Lowe“Combined, we will be an industry leader in telecom transmission and transport as well as 3D sensing,” said Alan Lowe, president and CEO of Lumentum, on an analyst call discussing the deal.

Lumentum says their joint revenues totalled $1.7 billion with a 39% gross margin over the last year. And $60 million in synergies are forecast in the second year after the deal closes, which is expected to happen later this year. 

The $1.8 billion acquisition will comprise 56 percent cash and 44 percent Lumentum stock. Lumentum will also raise $550 million to help finance the deal.

“This is a big deal as it consolidates the telecom part of the component market,” says Daryl Inniss, business development manager at OFS Fitel and former market research analyst.

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Juniper Networks opens up the optical line system

Juniper Networks has responded to the demands of the large-scale data centre players with an open optical line system architecture.

Donyel Jones-WilliamsThe system vendor has created software external to its switch, IP router and optical transport platforms that centrally controls the optical layer.

Juniper has also announced a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) - the TCX1000 - that is Lumentum’s own white box ROADM design. Juniper will offer the Lumentum white box as its own, part of its optical product portfolio.

The open line system architecture, including the TCX1000, is also being pitched to communications service providers that want an optical line system and prefer to deal with a single vendor.

“Juniper plans to address the optical layer with a combination of software and open hardware in the common optical layer,” says Andrew Schmitt, founder and lead analyst at Cignal AI. “This is the solution it will bring to customers rather than partnering with an optical vendor, which Juniper has tried several times without great success.”

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Infinera unveils first platforms using its latest PIC & DSP

• The Cloud Xpress 2 platform for data centre interconnects packs 1.2 terabits in a 1 rack unit (1RU) box.  
• Infinera has also unveiled two DTN-X XT 'meshponder' platforms that aggregate client signals and offer sliceable transponder functionality that delivers wavelengths to multiple destinations. 
• The company also announced an open flexible grid line system that supports the C and L bands 
• Three of the top four US internet content providers are Infinera customers.

Infinera has started to unveil its platform portfolio based on its Infinite Capacity Engine that combines the company's latest-generation photonic integrated circuit (PIC) and coherent DSP-ASIC technology.

Geoff Bennett

The first platform using the technology is the Cloud Xpress 2, Infinera second-generation data centre interconnect platform, was unveiled in September. More recently, it has added two DTN-X meshponder platforms - the XT-3300 and the XT-3600 - as well as upgrading two of its existing DTN-X platforms.

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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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The white box concept gets embraced at the optical layer

Lumentum has unveiled several optical white-box designs. To date the adoption of white boxes - pizza-box sized platforms used in large-scale data centres - has been at the electronic layer, for switching and routing applications.

Brandon Collings

White boxes have arisen to satisfy the data centre operators’ need for simple building-block functions in large number that they can direct themselves.  

“They [data centre operators] started using very simple white boxes - rather simple functionality, much simpler than the large router companies were providing - which they controlled themselves using software-defined networking orchestrators,” says Brandon Collings, CTO of Lumentum. 

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