Technology

OSA Executive Forum 2016 -- The metro market represents the next big opportunity for vendors of data centre interconnect (DCI) equipment, but it seems that not everybody wants new boxes.

One large prospective purchaser of such equipment, Microsoft, says it doesn’t intend to use purpose-built DCI platforms for the sweet spot in its network, namely links of 40km or less.

Infinera is planning to shoot straight past the terabit benchmark to reach multi-terabit capacity with its next generation of optical transmission technology. The company has disclosed details of the ‘Infinite Capacity Engine’, an optical subsystem capable of providing up to 2.4Tb/s of capacity in a single package roughly the size of the credit cards in your wallet.

“We are taking optical transport to the next level with the Infinite Capacity Engine. It’s the first multi-terabit optical subsystem,” claimed Pravin Mahajan, director of product and corporate marketing at Infinera.

The optical division from Nokia has announced technology and product enhancements that will enable service providers to quadruple the amount of capacity transmitted over an optical fibre.

By doubling the capacity of a single wavelength and simultaneously doubling the number of wavelengths transmitted per fibre, Nokia’s flagship 1830 Photonic Services Switch (PSS) platform will scale to support more than 70Tb/s per fibre, the company claims.

Dutch start-up Effect Photonics says it is sampling its first products, a family of DWDM transceivers based on its low-cost optical ‘system-on-chip’ technology.

This technology integrates all the active and passive components of a DWDM transceiver within a single chip, without the traditional gold box packaging. 

Keysight Technologies has developed new technology that will enable the company to deliver real-time and equivalent-time oscilloscopes with bandwidths greater than 100GHz.

The new ‘scopes are aimed at engineers working with next-generation, high-speed interfaces, such as the upcoming IEEE P802.3bs 400G, as well as terabit coherent optical modulation, who will need to measure high-speed electrical parameters. These technologies will also play a key role in validating fifth-generation (5G) wireless designs.

BT has used G.fast technology to deliver a cloud radio access network (C–RAN) cellular network service over copper. The UK operator partnered with US-based semiconductor manufacturer Cavium for the trial, which took places at BT Labs at Adastral Park in Ipswich.

Nokia has completed a laboratory trial with Deutsche Telekom to demonstrate how service providers can use XG-FAST to deliver high-speed broadband over their existing copper networks.

The lab trial was conducted at the end of 2015 by Alcatel-Lucent before its acquisition by Nokia.

The members of the microQSFP (micro quad small form-factor pluggable) multi-source agreement group have released draft mechanical specifications for the new microQSFP module and cage.

The draft mechanical details will allow system designers, optical module makers and copper cable assembly providers across the industry to begin the process of developing next-generation hardware based on the microQSFP definition.

Optical transport specialist Infinera says its next generation of coherent technology will allow operators to extract the maximum capacity and reach out of installed terrestrial and submarine networks.

Several new technologies have been grouped into what Infinera calls the ‘Advanced Coherent Toolkit’ (ACT), which will be offered commercially sometime later in the year.

The new technologies have also been “tested to their limits” on a challenging 9,000km fibre-optic link – one of the world’s longest – belonging to the Australian carrier Telstra.

Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley have fabricated a microprocessor with integrated photonic interconnects, a first according to the researchers. The 3 x 6mm chip contains two processor cores with 70 million transistors and 850 photonic components.

The microprocessor was fabricated with mass production equipment, showing it can be scaled up easily. The research was described in a paper published in Nature.