400ZR will signal coherent’s entry into the datacom world
Tuesday, June 5, 2018 at 7:19PM - 400ZR will have a reach of 80km and a target power consumption of 15W
- The coherent interface will be available as a pluggable module that will link data-centre switches across sites
- Huawei expects first modules to be available in the first half of 2020
- At OFC, Huawei announced its own 250km 400-gigabit single-wavelength coherent solution that is already being shipped to customers
Coherent optics will finally cross over into datacom with the advent of the 400ZR interface. So claims Maxim Kuschnerov, senior R&D manager at Huawei.
Maxim Kuschnerov400ZR is an interoperable 400-gigabit single-wavelength coherent interface being developed by the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) {add link}.
The 400ZR will be available as a pluggable module and as on-board optics using the COBO specification {add link}. The IEEE is also considering a proposal to adopt the 400ZR specification, initially for the data-centre interconnect market. “Once coherent moves from the OIF to the IEEE, its impact in the marketplace will be multiplied,” says Kuschnerov.
But developing a 400ZR pluggable represents a significant challenge for the industry. “Such interoperable coherent 16-QAM modules won’t happen easily,” says Kuschnerov. “Just look at the efforts of the industry to have PAM-4 interoperability, it is a tremendous step up from on-off keying.”
Despite the challenges, 400ZR products are expected by the first half of 2020.
