OIF addresses 800-gigabit coherent interfaces

The OIF has started work on 800-gigabit coherent interfaces, a follow-on to its 400-gigabit 400ZR specification work.

Two requirements are being addressed: an 800-gigabit dense wavelength division (DWDM) interface with a 80-120km span for data centre interconnect, and an unamplified single-channel fixed-wavelength 2-10km coherent link for campuses.

The need for 800 gigabit

Tad Hofmeister

“When we hit that 90 per cent mark on 400ZR, we had people stand up and say: ‘We are ready to start 800ZR’,” says Karl Gass, OIF, physical link layer working group – optical vice-chair.

But completing the work has taken time. “The first 90 per cent of a project takes about half the time and the last 10 per cent takes the other half,” says Gass.

So only in mid-2020 did the OIF’s attention turn to the new standard, starting with determining the use cases.

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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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Mellanox to acquire silicon photonics player Kotura

Source: Gazettabyte

Mellanox Technologies has announced its intention to acquire silicon photonics player, Kotura for $82 million.

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Silicon photonics: Q&A with Kotura's CTO

A Q&A with Mehdi Asghari, CTO of silicon photonics start-up, Kotura.  In part one, Asghari talks about a recent IEEE conference that included silicon photonics, the next Ethernet standard, and the merits of silicon photonics for system design.

Part 1

 

"Photons and electrons are like cats and dogs. Electrons are dogs: they behave, they stick by you, they are loyal, they do exactly as you tell them, whereas cats are their own animals and they do what they like. And that is what photons are like."

Mehdi Asghari, CTO of Kotura

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Luxtera's 100 Gigabit silicon photonics chip

Luxtera has detailed a 4x28 Gigabit optical transceiver chip. The silicon photonics company is aiming the device at embedded applications such as system backplanes and high-performance computing (HPC). The chip is also being used by Molex for 100 Gigabit active optical cables. Molex bought Luxtera's active optical cable business in January 2011.

“Do I want to invest in a copper backplane for a single generation or do I switch over now to optics and have a future-proof three-generation chassis?”  

Marek Tlalka, Luxtera

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