PCI Express back on track with latest specifications

Richard Solomon and Scott Knowlton are waiting for me in the lobby of a well-known Tel-Aviv hotel overseeing the sunlit Mediterranean Sea.  

Richard SolomonSolomon, vice chair of the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), and Knowlton, its marketing working group co-chair, are visiting Israel to deliver a training event addressing the PCI Express (PCIe) high-speed serial bus standard. 

With over 750 member companies, PCI-SIG conducts several training events around the world each year. The locations are chosen where there is a concentration of companies and engineers undertaking PCIe designs. “These are chip, board and systems architects,” says Solomon. 

PCI-SIG has hit its stride after a prolonged quiet period. The group completed the PCIe 4.0 standard in 2017, seven years after it launched PCIe 3.0. The PCIe 4.0 doubles the serial bus speed and with the advent of PCIe 5.0, it will double again.

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Adding an extra dimension to ROADM designs

U.K. start-up ROADMap Systems, a developer of wavelength-selective switch technology, has completed a second round of funding. The amount is undisclosed but the start-up is believed to have raised several million dollars to date.

Karl HeeksThe company will use the funding to develop a prototype of its two-dimensional (2D) optical beam-steering technique to integrate 24 wavelength-selective switches (WSSes) within a single platform.

The WSS is a key building block used within reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs).

The company’s WSS technology uses liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) technology, the basis of existing WSS designs from the likes of Finisar and Lumentum. However, the start-up has developed a way to steer beams in 2D whereas current WSSes operate in a single dimension only.

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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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NeoPhotonics ups the baud rate for line and client optics

• Neophotonics’ 64 gigabaud optical components are now being designed into optical transmission systems. The components enable up to 600 gigabits per wavelength and 1.2 terabits using a dual-wavelength transponder.    

• The company’s high-end transponder that uses Ciena’s WaveLogic Ai coherent digital signal processor (DSP) is now shipping.  

• NeoPhotonic is also showcasing its 53 gigabaud components for client-side pluggable optics capable of 100-gigabit wavelengths at the current European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) show being held in Rome.  

NeoPhotonics says its family of 64 gigabaud (Gbaud) optical components are being incorporated within next-generation optical transmission platforms. 

Ferris LipscombThe 64Gbaud components include a micro intradyne coherent receiver (micro-ICR), a micro integrable tunable laser assembly (micro-ITLA) and a coherent driver modulator (CDM).

The micro-ICR and micro-ITLA are the Optical Internetworking Forum’s (OIF) specification, while the CDM is currently being specified.   

“Three major customers have selected to use all three [64Gbaud components] and several others are using a subset of those,” says Ferris Lipscomb, vice president of marketing at NeoPhotonics.

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OPNFV's releases reflect the evolving needs of the telcos

The Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) is increasingly focused on supporting cloud-native technologies and the network edge.

Heather KirkseyThe open source group, part of the Linux Foundation, specialises in the system integration of network functions virtualisation (NFV) technology.

The OPNFV issued Fraser, its latest platform release, earlier this year while its next release, Gambia, is expected soon.  

Moreover, the telcos continual need for new features and capabilities means the OPNFV’s work is not slowing down.

“I don’t see us entering maintenance-mode anytime soon,” says Heather Kirksey, vice president, community and ecosystem development, The Linux Foundation and executive director, OPNFV. 

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Switch chips not optics set the pace in the data centre

Broadcom is doubling the capacity of its switch silicon every 18-24 months, a considerable achievement given that Moore’s law has slowed down. 

Last December, Broadcom announced it was sampling its Tomahawk 3 - the industry’s first 12.8-terabit switch chip - just 14 months after it announced its 6.4-terabit Tomahawk 2.

Rochan SankarSuch product cycle times are proving beyond the optical module makers; if producing next-generation switch silicon is taking up to two years, optics is taking three, says Broadcom. 

“Right now, the problem with optics is that they are the laggards,” says Rochan Sankar, senior director of product marketing at switch IC maker, Broadcom. “The switching side is waiting for the optics to be deployable.”

The consequence, says Broadcom, is that in the three years spanning a particular optical module generation, customers have deployed two generations of switches. For example, the 3.2-terabit Tomahawk based switches and the higher-capacity Tomahawk 2 ones both use QSFP28 and SFP28 modules. 

In future, a closer alignment in the development cycles of the chip and the optics will be required, argues Broadcom.

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Is ADVA Optical Networking looking to buy ECI Telecom?

Is ADVA Optical Networking preparing a bid for private company ECI Telecom? The latest consolidation rumour involving the two mid-tier metro players comes after Infinera’s announcement that it is acquiring Coriant, a deal that is expected to close this quarter. 

According to a source in the financial sector, ADVA wanted to acquire Coriant but failed to raise the required funds. Infinera’s successful bid for Coriant has led ADVA to consider alternatives as it looks to secure its future in a consolidating marketplace, with ECI Telecom being viewed as an attractive target. 

ECI Telecom is reportedly considering an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange to raise $170 million. A source close to ADVA confirmed that ‘ECI is looking for a home’ but declined to comment on whether ADVA is involved. Another source close to ADVA suggested that there may be some truth in such a bid.

ADVA declined to comment. 

An ECI spokesperson said the company has issued no statement regarding an IPO and expressed surprise when asked if ECI was looking to merge. The spokesperson declined to comment when asked about ADVA acquiring ECI. 

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