ADVA and II-VI’s coherent partnership

• ADVA and II-VI have jointly developed a 100-gigabit coherent DSP
• Both companies plan to use the 2.0-2.5W, 7nm CMOS Steelerton DSP for a 100 ZR QSFP28 module
• II-VI’s ASIC design team engineered the DSP while ADVA developed the silicon photonics-based optics. 

ADVA and II-VI have joined forces to define a tiny coherent digital signal processor (DSP) that fits inside a QSFP28 optical module.

Christoph Glingener

The Steelerton DSP can send a 100-gigabit dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) transmission over 80-120km, carrying wireless backhaul and access traffic.

“It is backhaul of broadband, it is backhaul of mobile, and it definitely moves outdoors,” says Christoph Glingener, CTO at ADVA.

The module also serves metro networks with its 300km reach using optical amplification.

II-VI and ADVA now join such established coherent players as Ciena, Huawei, Infinera, Nokia as well as Marvell, NEL, and Acacia, now part of Cisco.

Effect Photonics announced at OFC earlier this year its coherent market entry with its acquisition of the Viasat DSP team. 

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II-VI’s VCSEL approach for co-packaged optics

Co-packaged optics was a central theme at this year’s OFC show, held in San Diego. But the solutions detailed were primarily using single-mode lasers and fibre.

Vipul Bhatt

The firm II-VI is beating a co-packaged optics path using vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and multi-mode fibre while also pursuing single-mode, silicon photonics-based co-packaged optics.   

For multi-mode, VCSEL-based co-packaging, II-VI is working with IBM, a collaboration that started as part of a U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) project to promote energy-saving technologies.

II-VI claims there are significant system benefits using VCSEL-based co-packaged optics. The benefits include lower power, cost and latency when compared with pluggable optics.

The two key design decisions that achieved power savings are the elimination of the retimer chip - also known as a direct-drive or linear interface - and the use of VCSELs.

The approach - what II-VI calls shortwave co-packaged optics - integrates the VCSELs, chip and optics in the same package.

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Books read in 2021: Part 2

In Part II, two more industry figures pick their reads of the year: Sara Gabba of II-VI and Ciena’s Joe Marsella.

Sara Gabba, Strategic Marketing, II-VI

I’ve always read a lot. I cannot fall asleep without the sweet or the exciting company of a good book!

In the last year, I’ve spent many evenings reading fairy tales to my young daughter and, on top of the traditional ones from Andersen or the Grimm brothers, I’ve surprisingly discovered that she really likes the Greek myths (in an adaptation for children), which are the archetypes of most of the ‘modern’ tales. Love, mystery, jealousy, fear, talent, heroism: all the instincts and passions of humankind are there and able to capture every reader.

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Lumentum bulks up with NeoPhotonics buy

Lumentum is to acquire fellow component and module specialist, NeoPhotonics, for $918 million.

The deal will expand Lumentum’s optical transmission product line, broadening its component portfolio and boosting its high-end coherent line-side product offerings.

Vladimir Kozlov

Gaining NeoPhotonics' 400-gigabit coherent offerings will enable Lumentum to better compete with Cisco and Marvell. Lumentum will also gain a talented team of photonics experts as it looks to address new opportunities.

Alan Lowe, Lumentum’s president and CEO, stressed the importance of this collective optical expertise.

Speaking on the call announcing the agreement, Lowe said the expanded know-how would benefit Lumentum’s traditional markets and accelerate its entrance into other, newer markets.

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The future of optical I/O is more parallel links

Chris Cole has a lofty vantage point regarding how optical interfaces will likely evolve.

As well as being an adviser to the firm II-VI, Cole is Chair of the Continuous Wave-Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CW-WDM) multi-source agreement (MSA). 

Chris Cole

The CW-WDM MSA recently published its first specification document defining the wavelength grids for emerging applications that require eight, 16 or even 32 optical channels.

And if that wasn’t enough, Cole is also the Co-Chair of the OSFP MSA, which will standardise the OSFP-XD (XD standing for extra dense) 1.6-terabit pluggable form factor that will initially use 16, 100 gigabits-per-second (Gbps) electrical lanes. And when 200Gbps electrical input-output (I/O) technology is developed, OSFP-XD will become a 3.2-terabit module. 

Directly interfacing with 100Gbps ASIC serialiser/ deserialiser (serdes) lanes means the 1.6-terabit module can support 51.2-terabit single rack unit (1RU) Ethernet switches without needing 200Gbps ASIC serdes required by eight-lane modules like the OSFP.

“You might argue that it [the OSFP-XD] is just postponing what the CW-WDM MSA is doing,” says Cole. “But I’d argue the opposite: if you fundamentally want to solve problems, you have to go parallel.”

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II-VI expands its 400G and 800G transceiver portfolio

II-VI has showcased its latest high-speed optics. The need for such client-side modules is being driven by the emergence of next-generation Ethernet switches in the data centre.

The demonstrations, part of the OFC virtual conference and exhibition held last month, featured two 800-gigabit and two 400-gigabit optical transceivers.

“We have seen the mushrooming of a lot of datacom transceiver companies, primarily from China, and some have grown pretty big,” says Sanjai Parthasarathi, chief marketing officer at II-VI.

Sanjai Parthasarathi

But a key enabler for next-generation modules is the laser. “Very few companies have these leading laser platforms - whether indium phosphide or gallium arsenide, we have all of that,” says Parthasarathi.

During OFC, II-VI also announced the sampling of a 100-gigabit directly modulated laser (DML) and detailed an optical channel monitoring platform.

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Is traffic aggregation the next role for coherent?

Ciena and Infinera have each demonstrated the transmission of 800-gigabit wavelengths over near-1,000km distances, continuing coherent's marked progress. But what next for coherent now that high-end optical transmission is approaching the theoretical limit? Can coherent compete over shorter spans and will it find new uses?

The first of several articles addressing what next for coherent.

Part 1: XR Optics

“I’m going to be a bit of a historian here,” says Dave Welch, when asked about the future of coherent.

Interest in coherent started with the idea of using electronics rather than optics to tackle dispersion in fibre. Using electronics for dispersion compensation made optical link engineering simpler.

Dave Welch

Coherent then evolved as a way to improve spectral efficiency and reduce the cost of sending traffic, measured in gigabit-per-dollar.

“By moving up the QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) scale, you got both these benefits,” says Welch, the chief innovation officer at Infinera.

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