Transforming Network Infrastructure Week in Review: ADVA, Broadcom, Fujitsu, Infinera, Radisys
By It is a big week for news in the optical realm. That’s in part because the Optical Fiber Communication 2016 is taking place.
Broadcom is among the companies at the Anaheim, Calif., event, at which it is demonstrating its solutions. As Transforming Network Infrastructure reported this week, Broadcom has a new end-to-end optical pulse-amplitude modulation 4 solution. With PAM4, it is possible to encode two bits in every symbol so the high frequency content of the signal is half the non-return to zero equivalent for a given data rate.
Another company at OFC displaying new products to address the rapid increase of communications traffic on today’s networks is Fujitsu Optical Components Ltd. The company recently announced that it has successfully established a mass production system for a compact, low-power-consumption CFP2 ACO transceiver that supports 100G DP-QPSK and 200G DP-16QAM modulation. It will be released later this year.
“Due to the recent rapid increase in the volume of communications traffic, the requirement for core networks to handle larger capacity and longer distance on their links has led to the spread of 100G optical networks using coherent transmission systems,” Fujitsu noted in announcing the news. “In the near future, 100G optical networks using coherent transmission systems will also spread into metro networks and data center applications. High density mounting in optical network equipment for metro networks and data center interconnects requires downsizing the optical module portion to the same size as a CFP2 transceiver and mounting the DSP (with the high-power consumption) on the mother board.”
Also this week, Infinera unveiled a multi-terabit optical subsystem with improved optical wave division multiplexing performance. Called the Infinite Capacity Engine, this solution delivers optical super-channel capacity up to 2.4 terabits per second and reach up to 12,000 kilometers.
And just yesterday ADVA Optical Networking announced that it is leading the Silicon Photonics Enabling Exascale Data Networks project.
“The SPEED project is about collaboration. It’s about combining the expertise and passion of a leading multi-disciplinary engineering team to realize a shared vision – that high-bit-rate optical transceivers in the future should be as easy to manufacture and handle as electronic ICs today,” explained Jörg-Peter Elbers, vice president of advanced technology at ADVA Optical Networking. “In SPEED, manufacturability, testability and low-cost packaging are top priorities right from the beginning of the project and not the neglected step-child to be dealt with at the end. Leveraging a CMOS-compatible ePIC approach, the potential to drive innovation and improve time to market is immense and opens a clear path towards more vertical integration in our products.”
Transforming Network Infrastructure this week also noted that Radisys Corp. recently launched DCEngine as part of its portfolio of solutions designed to help service providers solve the complex challenges inherent to making the move to next generation networks.
