The Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC) is celebrating 50 years of optical networking and communications this year. The milestone highlights decades of innovation from companies such as Acacia that have delivered optical networking technology enabling network operators to continually expand their bandwidth, deliver faster networks, and offer more services.

One of those innovations that we believe will be a dominant topic at OFC this year is coherent optics. Coherent pluggable modules have been critical for enabling network operators to keep up with bandwidth demands over the last decade, and according to Cignal AI, they will account for most of the future bandwidth growth driven by applications such as generative AI and machine learning. Acacia pioneered the coherent pluggable more than 10 years ago with the introduction of the industry’s first 100G CFP module in 2014 and has been a market leader ever since having shipped half a million 400G ports based on the Greylock DSP, including more than 25,000 Bright 400ZR+ ports.

Acacia continues to innovate and will illustrate its industry-leading optical networking advancements through the following demonstrations and speaking sessions:

Demonstrations:

• 200G per lane optical engine products – Demonstrating the recently announced 200G/lane silicon photonics optical engine with transmitter and receiver designs supporting DR4, DR8 and 2xFR4 configurations.
• Delphi DSP-based Coherent Pluggable Portfolio including new L-Band 400G ULH – Showcasing Acacia’s broad 400G module portfolio powered by Acacia’s 9th generation DSP Delphi including 800ZR, 800G ZR+ with interoperable Probabilistic Constellation Shaping (PCS), and 400G Ultra Long Haul. 400G modules in QSFP-DD form factor and 800G modules in both OSFP and QSFP-DD form factors are available with C and L-Band versions.
• OIF multi-vendor interoperability (Booth #5745) – Showing interoperability of 800ZR, 400ZR, OpenZR+ and Multi-Span Optics enhancing multi-vendor interoperability in high-capacity, long-distance optical networks and Common Management Interface Specification (CMIS) standardizing the management of optical and electrical devices to simplify scalability.
• OpenROADM compliant 800G ZR+ coherent modules – Featuring a link between the OIF booth (#5745) and OpenROADM booth (#5128) demonstrating the high-performance interop PCS interface which expands the market for 800G pluggables beyond metro DCI into regional and even long-haul networks. Acacia’s award-winning 800G ZR+ modules were the first in the industry to support the OpenROADM specification.
• Ethernet Alliance (Booth #5173) – Showing interoperability of Acacia 800G ZR interconnects.

Speaking Sessions:

Monday, March 31

• Optica Executive Forum: Status of Photonic-enabled Modules and Interconnects
  — Speaker: Tom Williams, VP of Marketing
  — Time: 10:35-11:50 am
  — Location: Marriott Marquis
• Multi-rate PAM4 Silicon Photonic Based Receiver Assembly with -10dBm iFEC Sensitivity at 226Gb/s/λ and 125mW/Ch CMOS TIA
  — Speaker: Mahdi Parvizi, Principal Engineer
  — Time: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
  — Location: Rooms 211-212 (Level 2)

Tuesday, April 1

• Market Watch: Optical Modules, Transceivers and Applications
  — Speaker: Tom Williams, VP of Marketing
  — Time: 2:15 – 3:45 pm
  — Location: Theater I

Wednesday, April 2

• Network Operator Summit: Interoperation of Optical Pluggable Transceivers and IP/Optical Integration
  — Moderator: Anuj Malik, Director, Product Management and Strategy
  — Featured speakers from Cignal AI, Arelion, Cox Communications, Deutsche Telekom Technik GmbH, Telefonica
  — Time: 10:45 – 12:15 pm
  — Location: Theater I
• Coherent Optics Unleashed: 400ZR Success to 800ZR/LR Advancements and 1600ZR/ZR+ Kick-Off
  — Speaker: Doug Cattarusa, Technical Marketing Engineer
  — Time: 4:00 – 5:00 pm
  — Location: Theater I

Thursday, April 3

• Market Watch: Optical Network Evolution for AI/ML, Architectures and Drivers
  — Speaker: Tom Williams, VP of Marketing
  — Time: 10:15 – 11:45 am
  — Location: Theater I
• Demonstration of 400G Optical Interoperability in IP Over WDM Network Scenarios Over Single Span WDM System with and Without Optical Amplifiers
  — Speaker: Anuj Malik, Director, Product Management & Strategy
  — Time: 10:30 am
• Coherent Moving to Client Optics
  — Moderator: Tom Williams, VP of Marketing
  — Time: 2:00 – 3:00 pm
  — Location: Theater II

Come See us!
If you are attending OFC 2025 and would like to discuss any of these topics, contact us to request a meeting.

Driven by Demands for Higher-Bandwidth, Lower Power and Smaller Footprint
Acacia’s client optics portfolio is driven by key customer requirements for better power efficiency, higher performance, and smaller footprint from a proven high-volume supplier. Delivering these capabilities is a critical enabler for module vendors to design cutting-edge pluggable modules that can handle the compute intensive workloads generated by AI, cloud services, and video streaming. With more than a million 100G per lane optical engines shipped in the last 12 months, Acacia is already an established supplier for client optics components based on silicon photonics.

Introducing the 3nm 1.6T Kibo PAM4 DSP
At the heart of Acacia’s 200G per lane client optics portfolio is the 3nm 1.6T Kibo PAM4 DSP designed to power the optical interconnects inside the world’s cloud and AI data centers. It is expected to sample later in 2025.

Key features include:

• 3nm CMOS node for market leading power efficiency enabling more than 20% lower power compared to existing 1.6T module implementations
• Industry standard compliance enhanced by Acacia’s algorithms
• Transmit Retimed Optics (TRO) configurations with power-efficient support for diagnostic and loopback troubleshooting capabilities
• Support for gearbox and retimer applications
• Designed to support 1.6T DR8 and 2xFR4, as well as 800G DR4, DR8, FR4 and 2xFR4 modules in OSFP/QSFP-DD form factors

200G per Lane Optical Engine Family
Complementing the Kibo PAM4 DSP is a family of Optical Engine products designed to support 200G per lane that leverage Acacia’s silicon photonics expertise. Acacia’s Optical Engine products will be demonstrated at OFC 2025.

The family of Optical Engine products address a variety of applications with the following configurations:

• Separate transmit and receive components
• DR4, DR8 and 2xFR4 use cases
• Support for 100G/lane and 200G/lane
• Flexible driver configuration support
• Transimpedance Amplifier (TIA) integration in receiver circuit (RX)

“We expect the market for IC chipsets for optical communications to grow from 2025 through 2030 at a CAGR of 17% as hyperscalers look to meet the burgeoning demands that AI is placing on the entire infrastructure,” said Vladimir Kozlov, Founder and CEO at LightCounting. “Having a new supplier in this space, that also has the credibility that Acacia has amassed over more than a decade, will be key for continuing innovation.”

Leverages Acacia’s Proven Volume Manufacturing Capabilities
As an established leader in coherent DSP ASIC design-to-volume deployment, Acacia is a trusted supplier in the telecommunications industry. Acacia’s expanded client optics portfolio is also backed by Cisco’s full commitment to support the ongoing development, supply and customer service of Acacia’s existing and future products.

“Client optics has always represented an exciting opportunity to leverage our team’s expertise in DSP and silicon photonics,” said Benny Mikkelsen, SVP and General Manager, Acacia. “With AI driving tremendous demand for client optics and increased adoption of silicon photonics at 200G/lane, this is an ideal time for us to invest in scaling this part of our business.”

Come See us At OFC 2025
If you are attending OFC 2025 and want to discuss our new client optics offerings, we’d welcome the opportunity to meet with you. Click here to set up a meeting.

Figure 1. Acacia’s Wall of Patents.

A recent Gazettabyte article details how our co-founders carried out this mission, introducing improvements in performance and power consumption to legacy coherent technology, initially used for the most challenging optical transmission links. Looking through our history, it’s clear to see the trailblazing path Acacia helped to define with coherent optical modules, especially pluggable modules. Acacia has always been laser-focused on providing customers with continuous improvements in speed, capacity, performance, size, and power consumption to meet the ever-growing demand for bandwidth. This has been done by focusing on (1) silicon-based optical and electrical designs, (2) advanced digital signal processing (DSP), (3) high-speed RF expertise, and (4) volume manufacturable high-density packaging, with all these disciplines “under one roof.” As a result, Acacia is now a leading supplier of coherent modules with multiple product families to support speeds from 100G to 1.2T, including a broad portfolio of 400G and 800G pluggable products, to address the needs of network operators worldwide.

Pioneer of Coherent Pluggables
It is interesting to note that this year marks the 30th anniversary of a significant event in optical transceiver history. It was in 1995 when the first standards-based pluggable optical transceiver called the Gigabit Interface Convertor (GBIC) was first defined, with supported speeds up to ~1Gbps. It was ~20 years from this achievement that Acacia introduced the first optical coherent pluggable transceiver to support 100Gbps in the multi-source agreement (MSA) CFP form factor.

Figure 2. Industry standardized pluggable modules: From the early days of 1G GBICs to today’s coherent pluggables capable of 3000km+ 400G and 1000km+ 800G.

And today, Acacia’s latest generation of coherent pluggable modules powered by the Delphi DSP, our 9th generation DSP, has enabled extraordinary reaches using even smaller QSFP-DD and OSFP form-factor modules. Acacia’s 400G ultra long-haul modules support distances beyond 3000km, and 800G ZR+ enhanced performance modules support distances beyond 1000km.

Leadership in Industry Standards
To ensure a thriving marketplace for coherent pluggable optics, many companies participate in MSA initiatives and/or in industry standards groups to agree on module product requirements to ensure a multi-vendor supply, interoperability, and economies of scale. Acacia has been a key driver and participant in many of these organizations. In the 400G pluggable generation, Acacia served as editor for the 400ZR Implementation Agreement in OIF. Acacia was also a founding member of the OpenZR+ MSA, which provided requirements for enhanced performance 400ZR+ with multi-vendor interoperability. Market adoption of 400ZR and OpenZR+ solutions has been the fastest of any coherent technology in history.

In the 800G pluggables generation, Acacia has continued its leadership in industry standards activities. As a key contributor along with other coherent suppliers, Acacia introduced the first standardized, interoperable probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS) mode for 800G ZR+ enhanced performance, enabling network operators to expand their 800G reaches beyond 1000km. The company is also playing a key role in driving 1600ZR/ZR+ industry agreements.

With the increasing demand for the current generations of 400G and 800G coherent pluggable modules, several companies have jumped on the bandwagon to participate in this optical renaissance. These 400G and 800G QSFP-DD and OSFP form-factor modules, capable of plugging directly into switch and router ports, have invigorated architectures using router-based coherent optics as a networking solution to reduce overall total cost of ownership.

Silicon-based Designs, Advanced DSPs, and High-Density Packaging
The key to Acacia becoming a market leader in coherent optics stems from our ongoing focus on core technology. For example, an important factor that provided many advantages in low power and high-density packaging was Acacia’s adoption of silicon photonics for high-speed coherent transmission. Silicon does not require temperature stabilization, which results in lower power implementation. In addition, silicon photonics can leverage high-volume CMOS packaging techniques to reduce overall cost. Our design and development approach has always been to utilize silicon photonics for both MSA pluggable modules as well as performance-optimized modules, providing design and operational efficiencies as well as rapid time to market. Following Acacia’s lead, we are now seeing multiple suppliers also embracing silicon photonics technology in their coherent pluggable modules because of the benefits it has delivered to the industry.

Another key technology advantage that sets Acacia apart is its coherent DSP design and capabilities. Innovation in this area has been critical for mitigating impairments such as dispersion and non-linear effects incurred during transmission over optical fiber. Acacia’s balanced and power-efficient approach to DSP development ensures robust algorithms while minimizing power consumption. As CMOS node sizes continue to shrink, relatively complex techniques for improving performance can be introduced into very compact MSA pluggable modules. The improved performance is enabling network operators to expand the types of architectures they can deploy using these pluggables, resulting in the ability to offer a wider range of network applications.

Driving innovation to meet increasing transmission baud rates meant having in-house cross-disciplinary teams to ensure the best designs. We were able to achieve this while also delivering a compact low power consumption device. Acacia’s 3D Siliconization enabled this high-density level of packaging with high signal integrity and allowed us to also leverage volume manufacturable processes used in the electronics industry. This approach enabled faster scaling of manufacturing and improved reliability.

15+ Years of Industry Firsts and Design Expertise
Technology leadership is a culmination of many factors, not just having the expertise in the technology itself. It is comprised of how the technology is developed and quickly brought to market with the capability of volume while maintaining quality, and with the goal of meeting customer requirements. Many factors have contributed to Acacia’s technology leadership, including an engineering approach based on in-house design expertise across key disciplines, leveraging years of experience, building on the successes of previous generations as well as adjacent industry innovations and manufacturing processes, and participating in industry standards. This powerful combination created many industry firsts over the last 15+ years since Acacia was founded.

Figure 3. Acacia has achieved many industry firsts for coherent pluggable modules since its founding.

Acacia has introduced coherent module products, including its recent Delphi-based pluggable modules, leveraging nine generations of DSP ASICs, and holds an industry leadership position when it comes to innovative design, quality, and manufacturability of coherent pluggable modules especially as baud rates increase while size and power consumption requirements decrease. Acacia continues to demonstrate its technology leadership as we move to higher bandwidth applications such as AI, as well as customer requirements for higher speed solutions such as 1600G MSA pluggable modules.

Increasing Baud Rates Delivers Twice the Capacity and Longer Reaches
History has shown that increasing baud rate is an efficient way to enable more cost-effective optical networks by reducing the number of optics required to support a given transmission capacity. As highlighted in the graphic below, by doubling the baud rate between successive generations, Class 3 products such as Acacia’s CIM 8 1.2T module supports twice the capacity per carrier over greater reaches than Class 2 solutions. This approach provides a simple, scalable path that supports higher capacity per carrier over the reaches needed for existing network architectures.

Network operators leveraging Class 3 140Gbaud solutions for DCI, metropolitan, long-haul, and subsea applications can maximize their network coverage across a wider distance than ever before. This results in the capability to transmit native 400G client traffic over virtually any network application, delivering 3x400G over 1.2Tbps per carrier capacity for high-capacity DCI interfaces, 2x400G over 800Gbps per carrier capacity for most optical links using 4 bits/symbol (~16QAM) modulation and 2 bits/symbol (400G QPSK) over ultra-long-haul and subsea distances.

Acacia’s Dayou Qian, Product Line Manager, will discuss the migration to high baud rate 400G QPSK during a live panel presentation titled Class 3 Optical Transport Systems: from DCI to Subsea at OptiNet China on June 20.

Learn More about Acacia’s Performance Optimized Solutions
As the first coherent module on the market to break through the terabit threshold, Acacia’s 1.2T CIM 8 module has proven its outstanding performance with multiple record breaking field trials across a wide range of applications. Visit this link to learn more.

With data center bandwidth growing rapidly, high-performance pluggable modules have become an important tool for network operators to scale their networks cost-efficiently. Acacia has worked closely with network operators to drive the industry’s first interoperable Probabilistic Constellation Shaped (PCS) interfaces. Acacia’s newest portfolio of silicon-based 800G coherent pluggables has been designed to double the connectivity speed from 400G to 800G to support data center interconnect (DCI) upgrades, taking advantage of next-generation routers with 800G I/O port speeds. When plugged into these routers, this family of 800G pluggables can replace traditional transport equipment across a greater range of infrastructure to meet demand for cloud and AI.

OIF Compliant 800ZR Modules
OIF compliant 400ZR has been a great success for the coherent pluggable industry with multiple suppliers and a tremendous volume of 400ZR QSFP-DD and OSFP modules deployed in metro DCI applications. With the switch and router 800G ports available, 800ZR will further reduce the cost, power, and space per 100G in the same applications. Acacia’s 800ZR pluggables support QSFP-DD and OSFP form factors fully compliant to OIF 800ZR with transmit power variants.

Acacia Delphi DSP-based coherent pluggable modules

800G ZR+ Modules with Interoperable PCS
Acacia’s 800G ZR+ modules are designed to support the recently released OpenROADM specifications that include interoperable PCS transmission capability. The 131Gbaud PCS provides an additional OSNR margin at 800G for longer reach suitable for regional DCI applications, linking multiple fiber spans and in-line amplification between data centers. Acacia 800G ZR+ pluggables support QSFP-DD and OSFP form factors with >1dBm transmit output power.

“The success of ZR+ at 400G was largely driven by its performance and interoperability, which enabled a multi-source environment to emerge,” said Scott Wilkinson, Lead Analyst for Optical Components at Cignal AI. “The interoperability now being proposed with 800G – not only in short distance applications (800ZR), but also in long distance (800G ZR+​) – expands the environment even further. Interoperable PCS will take the market for 800G pluggables beyond simple DCI into regional and even long-haul networks.”

400G QSFP-DD Module for Ultra Long-haul
Expanding Bright 400ZR+ module applications, Acacia has also added a new QSFP-DD for 400G ultra long-haul networks that include 400G QPSK and PCS with various baud rates to fit into different ROADM optical line systems. It is capable of >1dBm transmit power and high transmit OSNR over the entire C-band thanks to the integrated tunable optical filter for amplified spontaneous emission reduction.

Backed by Industry Leading Coherent Technology
Both the 800G pluggable portfolio and 400G ultra long haul pluggable are powered by Delphi, Acacia’s 9^th generation Digital Signal Processor (DSP) ASIC. Acacia boasts the broadest field-proven 400G MSA coherent pluggable portfolio in the industry with more than 250,000 ports shipped based on the Greylock DSP, including more than 10,000 Bright 400ZR+ ports. Acacia’s 800G and 400G pluggable portfolios benefit from Acacia’s 3D Siliconization approach, which applies integration and 3D stacking techniques to enable a single packaged device that includes all the high-speed optoelectronic functions necessary for coherent communications to provide benefits in cost, reliability, power, and size. These devices are manufactured using standard electronics packaging processes and result in improved signal integrity and performance through the reduction of electrical interconnects.

The Delphi DSP-based pluggable modules are planned to be available beginning in Q2 CY2024.

Additional Resources:

Blog: Key Challenges and Requirements for 800G MSA Pluggables

Below is a summary of where you can see Acacia speaking and showcasing its technology at the show.

Acacia Experts Discuss the Latest Trends and Technologies

Sunday, March 24^th

Are Coherent Transceivers About to Experience a Bandwidth Crunch?
Speaker: Long Chen
Time: 1:00 – 3:30 pm
Where: Room 6E

Coherent Optics for Next Generation 100G/200G PON: Single-Carrier or Multi-Carrier?
Speaker: Tom Williams
Time: 400 – 6:30 pm
Where: Room 6E

Monday, March 25^th

Executive Forum at OFC 2024
Status of Photonic-enabled Modules and Interconnects
Speaker: Tom Williams
Time: 10:45 – 12:00 pm
Where: Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel

Tuesday, March 26^th

Data Center Summit Panel II: Lowering Power Consumption in Optical Solutions
Organizer: Tom Williams
Time: 2:15 – 3:45 pm
Where: Theater II

Wednesday, March 27^th

CableLabs: Empowering Access Networks with Coherent Optics
Speaker: Tom Williams
Time: 11:30 – 12:30 pm
Where: Theater II

Coherent Optics Unleashed: From 400ZR Success to 800ZR/LR Advancements and 1600ZR Kick-off
Speaker: Tom Williams
Time: 4:00 – 5:00 pm
Where: Theater I

10 Years of Coherent DWDM Pluggables: Past, Present and Future 
Speaker: Christian Rasmussen
Time:  3:00 – 4:00 pm
Where: 3E

Acacia Accepted Papers

M3I. Transmission Optimization
Title: Optical Network Design with High Symbol Rate Flexible Coherent
Transceivers
Acacia Authors: Philippe Jennevé, Valeria Arlunno
Date/Time: Monday, March 25, 2024; 2:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Where: Room 7

W3H. Large Capacity Interconnect
Title: Real-Time 1.2Tb/s Large Capacity DCI Transmission
Acacia Authors: Hongbin Zhang, Shaoliang Zhang, Timo Pfau, Ahmed Awadalla, Mehmet Aydinlik, Jonas Geyer
Date/Time: Wednesday, March 27, 2024; 3:00 pm– 3:15 pm
Where: Room 6F

OIF Interoperability Participation

OIF Interoperability Demo, Booth #1323 – Featuring breakthrough solutions in speed, power and density to meet the growing demands of next-generation data center networking, AI/ML and disaggregation applications. Don’t miss interoperability demonstrations using Acacia’s QSFP-DD 400ZR and Bright 400ZR+ modules (including OpenROADM/ITU-T mode transmission), as well as multi-vendor management demonstrations through Common Management Interface Specification (CMIS).

Meet with Acacia at OFC
If you are attending the show, we welcome the opportunity to meet with you. Click here to request a meeting.  We hope to see you in San Diego!

The longest distance ever reported at single carrier 600G DWDM transmission on an SDM cable
The Amitié submarine cable features Space Division Multiplexing (SDM) technology with 16 fiber pairs, more than traditional subsea cables, with repeater power shared across the fiber pairs to deliver the highest cable capacity. This real-time field trial exceeded any industry trial performance to date with Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) 800G in a 150GHz channel spacing, equivalent to a spectrum efficiency of 5.33bit/s/Hz and a maximum spectral efficiency of 5.6bit/s/Hz. In addition, 600G was transmitted over 12,469 kilometers for a trans-Atlantic loopback configuration. This is the first time a 140Gbaud single carrier signal was demonstrated live, and is the longest distance ever reported at single carrier 600G DWDM transmission on an SDM cable.

According to Jamie Gaudette, GM of Cloud Network Engineering, Microsoft, “The transmission of 800G over 6,234 kilometers is a milestone that demonstrates SDM cables can deliver increased capacity over traditional subsea cables. This field trial demonstrates what is now a commercial technology for subsea routes, and we can improve the network capacity to help drive digital transformation for people, organizations, and industries around the world.”

“In the era of AI, reliable and fast network connections are more important than ever,” said Bill Gartner, SVP Optical Systems and Optics, Cisco. “Working with Microsoft on the Amitié cable to demonstrate the potential for improved overall network capacity with 800G at these distances is a significant milestone for an SDM cable, and we’re proud to drive the innovations that pave the way for ever increasing network capacity needs.”

Trial Leverages the Latest in Terabit Optics
According to Microsoft and Cisco, this trial was conducted to target improvements in subsea transmission to provide increased performance and capacity. It was performed with the Cisco NCS 1014 platform enabled by Acacia’s CIM 8, which is powered by Acacia’s Jannu digital signal processor and advanced silicon photonics.

CIM 8 features 2^nd Generation 3D Shaping that provides a 20% higher spectral efficiency over the previous generation. CIM 8 also includes advanced non-linear equalization capabilities, an important feature for submarine links. Acacia has been a leader in deployed submarine-capable silicon photonics for almost a decade.

With this recent subsea trial, Microsoft is the latest provider to announce successful transmission with the CIM 8. Previously, China Mobile, NYSERNet, Verizon, and Windstream Wholesale announced their own trials.

Join the Terabit Era
If you’re ready to join the Terabit Era with CIM 8, contact us.

As the first coherent module on the market to break through the terabit threshold, Acacia’s 1.2T Coherent Interconnect Module 8 (CIM 8) has proven its outstanding performance with multiple record breaking field trials across a wide range of applications. The most recent was Verizon with a successful 1.2 Tbps transmission over its live commercial fiber network in metro Long Island, NY.  And on the heels of that was Windstream Wholesale with a 1 Tbps wavelength over a 1,100-kilometer link across multiple routes on Windstream’s Intelligent Converged Optical Network (ICON).

Verizon Trial Demonstrates its Ability to Deliver Increased Speed, Reliability, and Overall Capacity
Leveraging the CIM 8’s advancements in terabit optics, Verizon was able to carry 1.2 Tbps of data using a single wavelength over longer distances through more nodes. In the trial, a 1.0 Tbps single-wavelength was transmitted over the Cisco NCS 2000 line system over 205km traversing 14 fiber central offices. In metropolitan networks, the number of central offices traversed is a key performance metric due to the progressive filtering and signal-to-noise ratio degradation as the wavelength passes through each office. Additionally in the trial, 800 Gb/s transmission was achieved over 305km through 20 offices and a 1.2 Tb/s wavelength traversed three offices.

According to Adam Koeppe, SVP of Technology Planning at Verizon, “We have bet big on fiber. Not only does it provide an award-winning broadband experience for consumers and enterprises, but it also serves as the backbone of our wireless network. As we continue to see customers using more data in more varied ways, it is critical we continue to stay ahead of our customers’ demands by using the resources we have most efficiently.”

Cisco’s Bill Gartner, SVP/GM Cisco Optical Systems and Optics, said “This trial demonstrates our commitment to continuous innovation aimed at increasing wavelength capacity and reducing costs. The Verizon infrastructure built with the Cisco NCS 2000 open line system supports multiple generations of optics thus protecting investments as technology evolves.”

Windstream Wholesale Trial Highlights Superior Performance of the CIM 8
Windstream Wholesale’s successful CIM 8 trial was enabled by the Cisco NCS 1014 C-Band 2.4T WDM Transponder Line Card with the CIM 8 module.  This transmission success showcased the high performance of the CIM 8, which was demonstrated over a third-party line system (150Ghz Channel). Following are the key wavelength transmissions that were achieved across Windstream ICON routes:

• Successful roundtrip transport of 1Tbps over 1,100 km from Miami to Jacksonville, Florida
• Successful transport of 800G over 1,387 km of mixed fiber from Miami through Tallahassee, Florida, to Atlanta, Georgia
• Successful roundtrip transport of 600G over 2,774 km from Miami, Florida, to Atlanta, Georgia

According to John Nishimoto, Windstream Wholesale senior vice president of products, marketing, and strategy, “This tremendous achievement further proves our commitment to technology leadership and networking expertise. We developed ICON to provide multi-vendor flexibility and seamlessly integrate the newest optimized technology into our disaggregated network. Achievements like this reinforce our 800G wave strategy and offer improved design and network planning options among our 100G and 400G solutions.”

The Growing Number of CIM 8 Trials
Verizon and Windstream Wholesale are just the latest providers to join the Terabit Era using Acacia’s CIM 8 module. Previously, Nysernet, China Mobile and Windstream Wholesale (in their first CIM 8 trial) announced record breaking field trials over ultra long haul, long haul and regional distances.  As all these trials demonstrate, the CIM 8 enables network operators to achieve the highest capacity and reach today while maximizing transmission data rate across a wide range of multi-haul network applications.

The CIM 8 Provides Full Network Coverage While Achieving 65% Power-per-Bit Savings Over Current Competing Solutions
Acacia’s CIM 8 enables full multi-haul network coverage as the high baud rate capabilities transport nx400GbE client traffic across a service provider’s entire network. As this previous blog discussed, the CIM 8 doubles the baud rate from the prior generation to achieve 140Gbaud capability while also leveraging the power of silicon technology to obtain cost and power advantages. These advancements have enabled the CIM 8 to provide 65% power-per-bit savings compared to current competing solutions that utilize alternative optical material systems.

Join the Terabit Era
If you’re ready to join the Terabit Era with CIM 8, contact us to schedule a field trial.

As optical networking is evolving, so is Acacia to meet the needs of our customers. Acacia’s founders, Benny Mikkelsen, Mehrdad Givehchi, Christian Rasmussen and I, are proud to introduce a refreshed visual identity including an updated logo and color scheme, reaffirming our commitment to our core values of customer focus, innovation, and reliability. We believe it captures the essence of these pillars with a bolder look to highlight our leadership in the Terabit era. Rather than introduce everything at once, our plan is to roll out our new look over time. Check out our new website home page and watch for the rest of the website to be updated in Q1 2024.

We Are Acacia
The Acacia brand continues, as does our commitment as a trusted supplier developing innovative silicon-based high speed optical interconnect products that accelerate network scalability through advancements in performance, capacity, and cost. Our silicon photonic PICs, DSP ASICs, and coherent modules inside a variety of network equipment products empower cloud and service providers to meet the fast-growing consumer demand for data. With a history of delivering industry first products while being pragmatic, we remain committed to disruptive innovation that helps our customers solve some of the most difficult optical networking challenges.

Customer Focus is Number One
At Acacia, customers are at the center of everything we do. Our new look aims to reinforce Acacia’s unwavering dedication to customer collaboration and satisfaction. By continuing to closely collaborate and deepen our understanding of customer needs and challenges, Acacia can continue to develop optical networking solutions that empower customers to thrive.

Disruptive Innovation is in our DNA
Acacia has consistently been at the forefront of technology advancements in the optical networking industry. Our cross-functional team is talented, confident, and committed to execution. We continue to build on this culture of creativity as we grow to meet and exceed customer expectations.

Trusted Reliability Sets Us Apart
Acacia understands the critical importance of reliability in today’s interconnected world. Customers rely on Acacia’s solutions for product consistency, seamless connectivity, and uninterrupted operations.

Cisco Alignment and Strengths
When Cisco announced the intent to acquire Acacia in July 2019, the company also promised that it was fully committed to supporting the ongoing development, supply and support of Acacia’s existing and future products, as well as continuing and expanding Acacia’s customer base and growing new customers.  Since the acquisition closed in 2021, this commitment has only strengthened, as we have continued to engage with our network equipment manufacturer customers on new development efforts that enable them to grow their business, while also helping support Cisco’s transformative network strategies.

While we are maintaining the Acacia brand, the company is bolstered by Cisco’s strengths including:

• World-class supply chain organization ensuring efficient production, delivery, and support for Acacia’s products
• Access to extraordinary people and technology expertise to help accelerate the trend toward coherent technology and pluggable solutions while accommodating a larger footprint of customers worldwide
• Financial strength that provides continued investment ensuring that Acacia will have the necessary resources and support to continue pushing boundaries, innovating, and delivering exceptional products and solutions

Acacia’s updated visual identity marks an exciting new chapter in our journey. We would like to thank our customers and partners for giving us the opportunity to work together and be a trusted partner to you. We look forward to continuing to collaborate to develop innovative solutions together. If you have questions or feedback, please contact us.

Raj Shanmugaraj
Mehrdad Givehchi
Benny Mikkelsen
Christian Rasmussen

Arelion Achieves 64% CAPEX and 76% OPEX Savings Enabled by Bright 400ZR+ Deployment

In August 2023, Arelion announced that it has taken another landmark step in converging its IP and optical layers as the first global network to deploy 400G QSFP-DD ZR+ Bright coherent optical modules in its production #1 ranked IP backbone. This first regional reach deployment spans 675 kilometers between Stockholm and Copenhagen over third-party Optical Open Line System (O-OLS). According to Arelion, the streamlined architecture eliminates the need for excessive hardware, thereby reducing potential points of failure. As a result, it achieves 64% CAPEX and 76% OPEX savings. This contributes to a significantly more cost-efficient network with fewer interfaces to control and maintain.

Highlighting the benefits of these modules, Arelion’s Mattias Fridström shares his insights in this video from testing the technology to how they can potentially transform network infrastructures.

Mattias Fridström, Vice President & Chief Evangelist at Arelion shares the benefits of deploying Acacia’s 400G QSFP-DD Bright Optical Modules in Arelion’s production IP backbone

Dariusz Solowiej, VP Network Technology & Customer Operations at Arelion added, “With constantly rising demand for our IP services and increasing traffic across the Internet, Arelion is constantly looking to deploy the latest technology. The deployment of 400G QSFP-DD Bright Optical Modules will ensure cost-effective, high-performance connectivity for our customers and help us grow our network in scale as we continue to connect the world. In addition, the coherent pluggable modules also help us achieve our sustainability goals through improved energy efficiency and redeploying redundant hardware assets.”

CENIC Validates Coherent Pluggable Optics for Big Data Applications
Using Bright QSFP-DD coherent optics, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) turned up a 300 Gbps optical service over CENIC’s production line system between Los Angeles and Sunnyvale and confirmed the error-free performance of the service with a comfortable operating margin.

According to CENIC, the new-generation coherent pluggables integrate an amplifier, making it possible to transmit from the optic at power levels that match those of typical transponder line cards. As a result, external amplification is no longer needed to boost the power level transmitted from the optic before it reaches the optical line system.  As explained by Sana Bellamine, CENIC’s Director of Regional and International Infrastructure, “The elimination of the external amplification requirement is an important step toward simplifying the provisioning of optical services and facilitates the adoption of coherent pluggables over our production line system.”

CENIC Validation Setup Diagram with Bright ZR+ Coherent Pluggables with Integrated Amplifiers

Announced earlier this year, Vodafone Turkey and Sipartech trials are summarized in this article.

Bright 400ZR+ QSFP-DD Modules Expands Applications by Enabling Longer Reach Applications
With an optical transmit power at least 10X greater than 400ZR, Bright QSFP-DD modules enable network operators to expand applications that can be addressed by 400G coherent pluggables in router-based optical deployments to include brownfield and greenfield metro/regional networks with reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) nodes.

Bright 400ZR+ QSFP-DD modules expand applications of 400G coherent pluggable to brownfield and greenfield metro/regional networks with ROADM nodes.

Visit Us at ECOC OIF 400ZR+ Interop Demonstration
If you are attending ECOC and want to see the Acacia Bright ZR+ coherent module in action, check out the 400ZR+ optics interoperability demonstration at the OIF Booth #304.  We hope you see you there!

Additional Resources

• Blog: Brightening ROADM Networks
• Product Page: Bright 400ZR+ coherent pluggable QSFP-DD module