Lumentum ships a 400G CFP2-DCO coherent module

Lumentum has started supplying customers with its CFP2-DCO coherent optical module. Operators use the pluggable to add an optical transport capability to equipment.

The company describes the CFP2-DCO as a workhorse; a multi-purpose pluggable for interface requirements ranging from connecting equipment in separate data centres to long-haul optical transmission.

Brandon CollingsThe module works at 100-, 200-, 300- and 400-gigabit line rates.

The pluggable also complies with the OpenROADM multi-source agreement. It thus supports the open Forward Error Correction (oFEC) standard, enabling interoperability with oFEC-compliant coherent modules from other vendors.

“Optical communications is getting more diverse and dynamic with the inclusion of the internet content providers (ICPs) alongside traditional telecom operators,” says Brandon Collings, CTO at Lumentum.

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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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Infinera’s ICE6 sends 800 gigabits over a 950km link

Infinera has demonstrated the coherent transmission of an 800-gigabit signal across a 950km span of an operational network.

Robert ShoreInfinera used its Infinite Capacity Engine 6 (ICE6), comprising an indium-phosphide photonic integrated circuit (PIC) and its FlexCoherent 6 coherent digital signal processor (DSP). 

The ICE6 supports 1.6 terabits of traffic: two channels, each supporting up to 800-gigabit of data. 

The trial, conducted over an unnamed operator’s network in North America, sent the 800-gigabit signal as an alien wavelength over a third-party line-system carrying live traffic.

“We have proved not only the state of our 800-gigabit with ICE6 but also the distances it can achieve,” says Robert Shore, senior vice president of marketing at Infinera.

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Lumentum on ROADM growth, ZR+, and 800G

CTO interview: Brandon Collings

• The ROADM market is experiencing a period of sustained growth  
• The Open ROADM MSA continues to advance and expand its scope
• ZR+ coherent modules will support some interoperability to avoid becoming siloed but optical performance differentiation remains key 

Source: Lumentum

Brandon Collings gave a Market Focus talk at the recent ECOC show in Dublin, where he explained why it is a good time to be in the reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) business. 

“Quantities are growing substantially and it is not one reason but a multitude of reasons,” says Collings. The CTO of Lumentum reckons the growth started some 18-24 months ago.  

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Lumentum completes sale of certain datacom lines to CIG

Brandon Collings, CTO of Lumentum, talks CIG, 400ZR and 400ZR+, COBO, co-packaged optics and why silicon photonics is not going to change the world.

Lumentum has completed the sale of part of its datacom product lines to design and manufacturing company, Cambridge Industries Group. 

The sale will lower the company's quarterly revenues by between $20 million to $25 million. Lumentum also said that it will stop selling datacom transceivers in the next year to 18 months.

Brandon CollingsThe move highlights how fierce competition and diminishing margins from the sale of client-side modules is causing optical component companies to rethink their strategies.

Lumentum’s focus is now to supply its photonic chips to the module makers, including CIG. “From a value-add point of view, there is a lot more value in selling those chips than the modules,” says Brandon Collings, CTO of Lumentum.

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Books in 2018 - Part 3

More books read in 2018, as recommended by Steve Alexander and Yves LeMaitre.

Steve Alexander, senior vice president and CTO, Ciena 

I was standing in line at a Starbucks and was chatting with another person who asked what all these engineers were doing talking about networks of submarines. In fact, it was a nearby conference on submarine cables. The person said: “I thought that’s what satellites were for”.

I wanted to find a book I could point people to who think that satellites carry most of the international traffic when, in fact, it is the fibre-optic submarine cables that carry the vast majority of the world’s communications. I came up with The Undersea Network by Nicole Starosielski.

Our industry does such a good job at this that most people don’t even know such networks exist. It is like air; it is there and it works.

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Relentless traffic growth leads to a ROADM rethink

Technology briefing: ROADMs

Lumentum has developed an optical switch to enable reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) to cope with the traffic growth expected over the next decade. 

The company’s MxN wavelength-selective switch (WSS) will replace the existing multicast switch used in colourless, directionless and contentionless ROADMs. The Lumentum TrueFlex 8x24 twin switch will enable networking nodes of 400-terabit capacity.

“This second-generation switch is what will take us into the 100 gigabaud and super-channel era of network scalability,” says Brandon Collings, CTO of Lumentum.

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