OFC 2014 product round-up - Final part

Part 2: Client-side technologies

The industry is moving at a clip to fill the void in 100 Gig IEEE standards for 100m to 2km links. Until now, the IEEE 10km 100GBASE-LR4 and the 10x10 MSA have been the interfaces used to address such spans.

But responding to data centre operators, optical players are busy developing less costly, mid-reach MSAs, as was evident at the OFC exhibition and conference, held in San Francisco in March. 

Meanwhile, existing IEEE 100 Gigabit standards are skipping to the most compact CFP4 and QSFP28 form factors. The -LR4 standard was first announced in a CFP in 2010, and moved to the CFP2, half the size of the CFP, in 2013. Now, several companies have detailed CFP4 -LR4 products, while Source Photonics has gone one better, announcing the standard in a QSFP28.

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OFC 2014 industry reflections - Part 2

Ciena and Ovum comment on the noteworthy developments and trends following the recent OFC 2014 exhibition and conference. 

The high cost of 100 Gigabit Ethernet client modules has been a major disappointment to me as it has slowed adoption

Joe Berthold, Ciena

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OFC 2014 product round-up - Part 1

Part 1: Line-side technologies

 

Technologies for 100 Gigabit were prominent at this year's OFC conference and exhibition held in San Francisco earlier this month.

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ECOC 2013 review - Part 1

Gazettabyte surveys some of the notable product announcements made at the recent European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) held in London.  

Part 1: Highlights

• First CFP4 module demonstration from Finisar
• Acacia Communications unveils first 100 Gig coherent CFP 
• Oplink announces a 100 Gig direct detection CFP
• Second-generation coherent components take shape   

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Hybrid integration specialist Kaiam acquires Gemfire

Kaiam Corp. has secured US $16M in C-round funding and completed the acquisition of Gemfire.

"We have a micro-machine technology that allows us to use standard pick-and-place electronic assembly tools, and with our micro-machine, we achieve sub-micron alignment tolerances suitable for single-mode applications"

Byron Trop, Kaiam

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Luxtera's interconnect strategy

Briefing: Silicon photonics

Part 1: Optical interconnect

Luxtera demonstrated a 100 Gigabit QSFP optical module at the OFC/NFOEC 2013 exhibition.

"We're in discussions with a lot of memory vendors, switch vendors and different ASIC providers"

Chris Bergey, Luxtera

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Industry underestimating 25 Gigabit parallel optics challenge

Ten Gigabit-based parallel optics is set to dominate the marketplace for several years to come. So claims datacom module specialist, Avago Technologies. 

"One customer told us it has to keep the interface speed below 20Gbps due to the cost of the SerDes"

Sharon Hall, Avago 

"People are underestimating what is going to be involved in doing 25 Gigabit [channels]," says Sharon Hall, product line manager for embedded optics at Avago Technologies. "Ten Gigabit is going to last quite a bit longer because of the price point it can provide."

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