News: Optoelectronics
14 January 2020
NeoPhotonics samples 400ZR ClearLight OSFP coherent transceivers for Cloud data-center interconnects
NeoPhotonics Corp of San Jose, CA, USA (a vertically integrated designer and manufacturer of hybrid photonic integrated optoelectronic modules and subsystems for high-speed communications) has sampled its new 400ZR ClearLight OSFP transceiver to a leading Cloud-related customer. The product utilizes NeoPhotonics’ silicon photonics coherent optical subassembly (COSA) and low-power-consumption, ultranarrow-linewidth Nano-ITLA tunable laser, combined with the latest generation of 7nm-node digital signal processing (DSP) technology, to provide full 400ZR transmission in a standard data-center OSFP form factor that can be plugged directly into switches and routers. This greatly simplifies and cost reduces data-center interconnect (DCI) networks by enabling the elimination of a layer of network equipment and a set of short-reach client-side transceivers, the firm says.
As hyper-scale Cloud architectures have evolved from concentrated data centers to multiple locations distributed around a metropolitan area, the need for seamless interconnection between data centers located at distances up to 120km apart has grown dramatically, notes NeoPhotonics. The ClearLight OSFP transceivers plug directly into the front panel of a switch or router to provision 400G connections over metro distances in a manner virtually the same as connections inside one data center. It is compliant with the OIF 400ZR Implementation Agreement and is interoperable with other manufacturers’ 400ZR modules that utilize a standard forward error correction (FEC) encoder and decoder.
The ClearLight OSFP modules are built using internally produced integrated coherent optical solutions from NeoPhotonics, including its new compact and low-power-consumption Nano-ITLA and silicon photonics COSA. This new OSFP module is capable of tuning to 75GHz- or 100GHz-spaced wavelength channels, as specified in the OIF agreement, and operates in 400ZR mode for Cloud DCI applications. For longer metro reaches, the module is designed to support 400ZR+ modes.
The ClearLight OSFP module can also be optionally provisioned to tune over the entire ‘Super C-Band’, or up to 6.4 Terahertz, increasing the capacity of an optical fiber by up to 50% over standard implementations. NeoPhotonics provides arrayed waveguide gratings for multiplexing and de-multiplexing with 75GHz and 100GHz wavelength channel spacings, supporting 85 and 64 channels respectively, with filter responses optimized for high-baud-rate coherent signals.
“This new OSFP module joins our ClearLight DCO transceiver line and takes full advantage of our highly integrated and low-power-consumption Nano-Tunable Laser and silicon photonics COSA to enable a full metro coherent transceiver in the form factor and electrical interface designed for short-reach interconnections inside the data center,” says chairman & CEO Tim Jenks. “We are now sampling these OSFP transceivers so that customers can evaluate the simplicity, cost and operating savings that can be realized by plugging coherent optics directly into switches and routers, and we are applying this same technology to additional form factors such as QSFP-DD,” he concludes.
