Interview: Finisar’s CEO reflects on a notable year

Michael Hurlston has had an eventful 2018. 

The year started with him replacing Finisar’s veteran CEO, Jerry Rawls, and it is now ending with Finisar being acquired by the firm II-VI for $3.2 billion.

Michael Hurlston

Finisar is Hurlston’s first experience in the optical component industry, having spent his career in semiconductors. One year in and he already has strong views about the industry and its direction.

“We have seen in the semiconductor industry a period of massive consolidation in the last three to four years,” says Hurlston, in his first interview sinced the deal was announced. “I think it is not that different in optics: scales matters.”    

Hurlston says that, right from the start, he recognised the need to drive industry consolidation. “We had started thinking about that fairly deeply at the time the Lumentum-Oclaro acquisition was announced and that gave us more impetus to look at this,” says Hurlston. The result was revealed in November with the announced acquisition of Finisar by II-VI.

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Finisar demonstrates its first silicon photonics transceiver

• Finisar unveiled its first silicon photonics-based product, a 400-gigabit QSFP-DD DR4 module, at the recent ECOC event.

• The company also showed transceiver technology that simplifies the setting up of dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) links.

• Two 200-gigabit QSFP56 client-side modules and an extended reach 30km 400-gigabit eLR8 were also demonstrated by Finisar. 

• A 64-gigabaud integrated tunable transmitter and receiver assembly (ITTRA) was used to send a 400-gigabit coherent wavelength.  

Finisar is bringing to market its first silicon photonics-based optical module. 

Christian UrricarietThe 400GBASE-DR4 is an IEEE 500m-reach 400-gigabit parallel fibre standard based on four fibres, each carrying a 100-gigabit 4-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) signal. Finisar’s DR4 is integrated into a QSFP-DD module. 

“The DR4 is the 400-gigabit interface that most of the hyperscale cloud players are interested in first,” says Christian Urricariet, senior director of global marketing at Finisar.

The company demonstrated the module at the recent European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC), held in Rome.  

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Optical module trends: A conversation with Finisar

Finisar demonstrated recently a raft of new products that address emerging optical module developments. These include: 

• A compact coherent integrated tunable transmitter and receiver assembly 
• 400GBASE-FR8 and -LR8 QSFP-DD pluggable modules and a QSFP-DD active optical cable 
• A QSFP28 100-gigabit serial FR interface 
• 50-gigabit SFP56 SR and LR modules

Rafik Ward, Finisar’s general manager of optical interconnects, explains the technologies and their uses.

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Finisar's 10 Gig bi-directional DWDM architecture

Finisar has developed a bi-directional 10-gigabit SFP+ module for the metro-access market. The dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) module is designed to expand capacity at locations where fibre is scarce. And being tunable, the SFP+ also simplifies network planning for the operators.

Finisar demonstrated the module working at the recent ECOC 2017 show held in Gothenburg.

Market applications

Interest is growing in using WDM optics for wireless, metro-access and cable networks that are undergoing upgrades. The interest in WDM at the network edge is due to a need to use fibre resources more efficiently. “We are seeing that globally, more and more dark fibre is being used up,” says Leo Lin, director of product line management at Finisar.

Leo LinGiven the cost of leasing and installing fibre, operators are keen to make the best use of their existing fibre and are willing to pay more for WDM optics.

According to Finisar, leasing a fibre can cost $250-$2,000 per fibre annually while the cost of installing fibre can be $500,000 per 10km. “Using WDM optics, you can get payback in less than a year,” says Lin.

LightCounting Market Research's latest forecast estimates that the global wireless transceiver market for 10 gigabit WDM will be approximately $400 million in 2022.

Finisar’s bi-directional 10-gigabit SFP+ product is also being aimed at two emerging ITU Telecom standards: G.metro and NG-PON2. 

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Books of the year 2016 - Part 2

More industry figures comment on books read this year. Here are Finisar's Simon Poole's and Ciena's Loudon Blair's recommendations.

Simon Poole, director, new business ventures, Finisar Australia

The highlight of the year in fiction was reading The Shepherds’ Crown, the last of the Discworld novels from the wonderful Terry Pratchett. He, along with his cast of extraordinary characters, including the marvellous Tiffany Aching – a fabulous role model for teenage girls, held up a mirror to the foibles and strengths of our humanity, and will be sorely missed.

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OIF starts work on a terabit-plus CFP8-ACO module

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) has started a new analogue coherent optics (ACO) specification based on the CFP8 pluggable module.

The CFP8 is the latest is a series of optical modules specified by the CFP Multi-Source Agreement and will support the emerging 400 Gigabit Ethernet standard.

Karl GassAn ACO module used for optical transport integrates the optics and driver electronics while the accompanying coherent DSP-ASIC residing on the line card.

Systems vendors can thus use their own DSP-ASIC, or a merchant one if they don’t have an in-house design, while choosing the coherent optics from various module makers. The optics and the DSP-ASIC communicate via a high-speed electrical connector on the line card.

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ECOC '15 Reflections: Part 2

Part 2: More industry executives share the trends and highlights they noted at the recent European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) event, held in Valencia. 

Martin Zirngibl, head of network enabling components and technologies at Bell Labs. 

Silicon Photonics is seeming to gain traction, but traditional component suppliers are still betting on indium phosphide.

There are many new start-ups in silicon photonics, most seem to be going after the 100 gigabit QSFP28 market. However, silicon photonics still needs a ubiquitous high-volume application for the foundry model to be sustainable.

There is a battle between 4x25 Gig CWDM and 100 Gig PAM-4 56 gigabaud, with most people believing that 400 Gig PAM-4 or discrete multi-tone with 100 Gig per lambda will win.

Will coherent make it into black and white applications - up to 80 km - or is there a role for a low-cost wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) system with direct detection?

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