COBO issues industry’s first on-board optics specification

• COBO modules supports 400-gigabit and 800-gigabit data rates   
• Two electrical interfaces have been specified: 8 and 16 lanes of 50-gigabit PAM-4 signals. 
• There are three module classes to support designs ranging from client-slide multi-mode to line-side coherent optics. 
• COBO on-board optics will be able to support 800 gigabits and 1.6 terabits once 100-gigabit PAM-4 electrical signals are specified. 

Source: COBO

Interoperable on-board optics has moved a step closer with the publication of the industry’s first specification by the Consortium for On-Board Optics (COBO).

COBO has specified modules capable of 400-gigabits and 800-gigabits rates. The designs will also support 800-gigabit and 1.6-terabit rates with the advent of 100-gigabit single-lane electrical signals. 

“Four hundred gigabits can be solved using pluggable optics,” says Brad Booth, chair of COBO and principal network architect for Microsoft’s Azure Infrastructure. “But if I have to solve 1.6 terabits in a module, there is nothing out there but COBO, and we are ready.”

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Oclaro makes available its EMLs and backs 400G-FR4

Lumentum’s plan to acquire Oclaro for $1.8 billion may have dominated the news at last month’s OFC show held in San Diego, but it was business as usual for Oclaro with its product and strategy announcements.

Adam Carter, chief commercial officer (pictured), positions Oclaro’s announcements in terms of general industry trends. 

“On the line side, everywhere there are 100-gigabit and 200-gigabit wavelengths, you will see that transition to 400 gigabit and 600 gigabit,” he says. “And on the client side, you have 100 gigabit going to 400 gigabit.” 

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Ciena picks ONAP’s policy code to enhance Blue Planet

Ciena is adding policy software from the Linux Foundation’s open-source Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) to its Blue Planet network management platform.

Operators want to use automation to help tackle the growing complexity and cost of operating their networks.

Kevin Wade“Policy plays a key role in this goal by enabling the creation and administration of rules that automatically modify the network’s behaviour,” says Kevin Wade, senior director of solutions, Ciena’s Blue Planet. 

Incorporating ONAP code to enhance Blue Planet’s policy engine also advances Ciena’s own vision of the adaptive network.    

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Will white boxes predominate in telecom networks?

Will future operator networks be built using software, servers and white boxes or will traditional systems vendors with years of network integration and differentiation expertise continue to be needed? 

AT&T’s announcement that it will deploy 60,000 white boxes as part of its rollout of 5G in the U.S. is a clear move to break away from the operator pack.

The service provider has long championed network transformation, moving from proprietary hardware and software to a software-controlled network based on virtual network functions running on servers and software-defined networking (SDN) for the control switches and routers.

Glenn WellbrockNow, AT&T is going a stage further by embracing open hardware platforms - white boxes - to replace traditional telecom hardware used for data-path tasks that are beyond the capabilities of software on servers.       

For the 5G deployment, AT&T will, over several years, replace traditional routers at cell and tower sites with white boxes, built using open standards and merchant silicon.

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Xilinx unveils a new class of compute IC

Programmable device company Xilinx has outlined an architecture that it claims represents a new class of computing chip.

The silicon architecture has been four years in the making, involved 1,500 engineers and cost over $1 billion in R&D investment.

ACAP's functional blocks. Source: Xilinx

Dubbed the adaptive compute acceleration platform (ACAP), the first device will be fabricated using TSMC’s state-of-the-art 7nm CMOS process and will tape out later this year. The largest ACAP devices will use as many as 50 billion transistors.

“Based on the limited information from Xilinx, it is difficult to say what ACAP is, much less whether it creates a new product category,” says Linley Gwennap, principal analyst at The Linley Group.

That said, Gwennap believes the next-generation Xilinx products are far more than simply moving its FPGA technology to a 7nm CMOS. “The company has clearly put significant effort into improving the capabilities of these products to address 5G wireless, machine learning (AI), and other advanced applications,” says Gwennap.

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Infinera’s ICE flow

Infinera’s newest Infinite Capacity Engine 5 (ICE5) doubles capacity to 2.4 terabits. The ICE, which comprises a coherent DSP and a photonic integrated circuit (PIC), is being demonstrated this week at the OFC show being held in San Diego. 

Infinera has also detailed its ICE6, being developed in tandem with the ICE5. The two designs represent a fork in Infinera’s coherent engine roadmap in terms of the end markets they will address.

Geoff BennettThe ICE5 is targeted at data centre interconnect and applications where fibre in being added towards the network edge. The next-generation access network of cable operators is one such example. Another is mobile operators deploying fibre in preparation for 5G.

First platforms using the ICE5 will be unveiled later this year and will ship early next year.

Infinera’s ICE6 is set to appear two years after the ICE5. Like the ICE4, Infinera’s current Infinite Capacity Engine, the ICE6 will be used across all of Infinera’s product portfolio.

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Rockley Photonics showcases its in-packaged design at OFC

Rockley Photonics has showcased its in-packaged optics design to select customers and development partners at the OFC show being held in San Diego this week.

The packaged design includes Rockley's own 2 billion transistor layer 3 router chip, and its silicon photonics-based optical transceivers. The layer 3 router chip, described as a terabit device, also includes mixed-signal circuits needed for the optical transceevers' transmit and receive paths.

 Source: Rockley Photonics (annotated by Gazettabyte).Rockley says it is using 500m-reach PSM4 transceivers for the design and that while a dozen ribbon cables are shown, this does not mean there are 12 100-gigabit PSM4 transceivers. The company is not saying what the total optical input-output is. 

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