I sat down with Argemiro Sousa, Chief Operations Officer for Equipment at Padtec, who shed some light on the development of this new product line and the company’s plans for the future. As Argemiro pointed out “The LightPad Max platform not only demonstrates our commitment to offer state-of-the-art innovative products, but it also furthers Padtec’s goal to extend our leadership in the Brazilian market while expanding our presence in the international market.”  This includes a focus on Latin America, the United States, Europe, and Africa.

Development Goals:  Performance, Time-to-Market, Form Factor and Robustness
As Argemiro explained, developing a new transponder is a long-cycle project and the transmission module is a key component for its success. Each year, coherent technology is improving its power consumption, advanced DSP algorithms and maximum GBaud rate. As the industry approaches the Shannon limit in fiber optics, these improvements are what make it possible to continue lowering the cost per bit in Padtec’s customers’ networks. Padtec chose Acacia’s CIM 8 because it enabled them to meet the following key requirements:

• Performance: Enabling channels with up to 140 GBaud is essential to continue reducing the cost per bit in DWDM networks. The minimum received OSNR required by the CIM 8 enabling rates of 400G and above, making these high rates feasible in ultra-long-haul and long-haul networks.
• Time to market: As an equipment manufacturer, Padtec starts developing its products before the optical modules are commercially available. “From previous experiences, we see Acacia as an aggressive player in getting to the market first and delivering cutting edge technology,” added Argemiro.
• Form factor: The CIM 8 is a module focused on performance and yet is pluggable. Since its transponder design considers two modules, Padtec can offer a pay-as-you-grow model to its customers.
• Robustness: Padtec needed a module that was highly reliable and had low rates of defect and they knew from experience that this was an Acacia strength.

Disaggregated Design Drives Cost Effectiveness in New LightPad Max Platform
Padtec’s goal with the LightPad Max was to repeat the success of its TM800G in Latin America by entering the Terabit era with a very competitive product that lowers total cost of ownership. Designed to optimize density and legacy compatibility, each line interface has 6 associated client interfaces capable of working both with 400GbE based on QSFP-DD and 100GbE QSFP-28 legacy interfaces, which are still prevalent in Padtec’s customers’ routers and switches.

One Product Family Spanning Multiple Markets
Targeting medium, long and ultra-long distances, the LightPad Max platform not only delivers scalability and cost effectiveness, but its disaggregated design also reduces space on customers’ infrastructure. And as a bonus, the standalone form factor makes the product more attractive to Alien Wavelength scenarios and the architecture is aligned to SDN technological trends.

Since the LightPad Max is a programmable transponder, operators can configure it with different rates and operational modes according to its needs. “This feature has great potential for the product to adapt to several network characteristics,” claimed Argemiro. “For instance, LightPad Max will make it possible to reach long haul and ultra long haul distances with 400G line rate, as well as higher rates of 1T or above in short distances such as data center interconnect scenarios.”

Padtec and Acacia’s Long-Standing Partnership
With the successful launch of the first LightPad Max family members, Padtec also plans to release future versions with advanced functionalities to be delivered by firmware updates throughout 2024 and 2025. The company already has agreements with some of its main customers to deploy in their networks.

At Acacia, we could not be more thrilled to see Padtec succeed on a global scale. We are also extremely proud of our long-term partnership, which dates back to 2016 when Padtec launched its 200G line cards based on Acacia’s CFP2-DCO.  Recently, these same line cards were adapted and qualified to use Acacia’s new generation 400G CPF2-DCO, based on the Greylock DSP.

Padtec was an early adopter of Acacia’s AC1200 module with its TM800G and TM1200G products, which Padtec has sold thousands of units of since 2020.  And we can’t forget our 400G pluggable family – the fastest growing coherent ramp-up of all time.  Padtec launched a disaggregated TMD400G standalone offering using Acacia’s 400G QSFP-DD OpenZR+ in 2023.

Lighting up the Future with Padtec Innovation and Customer Loyalty
Padtec ended 2023 with net revenue of R$ 368 million (US $70 million) which represented record gross profit and distribution of dividends. It was also the year the company saw a significant increase in its customer loyalty index, measured by survey based on the Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology. Padtec achieved a NPS index of +77, a result that places it in the “Excellence zone.” This was a significant jump compared to 2022, when the company’s NPS was +55, and the highest historical level since the survey began in 2017.

As Argemiro explained, “The NPS survey showed that we are on the right path, by reinforcing our position of commitment to the success of our customers and investing increasingly in the technological evolution of our solutions and in expanding our service portfolio. The flexibility to meet customer needs, both from a commercial point of view and in the offering of products and services, is an important differentiator for Padtec that was recognized in this research. We are constantly seeking ways to expand and enhance our services, and as a result, we aim to serve our customers better with each passing day.”

Customer loyalty and technological innovation are clearly what drives Padtec day in and day out.  On behalf of the entire Acacia team, we look forward to seeing what the company achieves in the future and are excited to continue our trusted partnership to help them grow and succeed.

As an example, Acacia’s high-performance Pico DSP-based 1.2 Terabit solution is currently deployed in well over one hundred networks around the globe and has been adopted by three of the four largest hyperscalers. In 2020 alone, Acacia shipped more than 30,000 Pico-based ports as customers increasingly recognized the competitive benefits that high-performance, flexible coherent transmission solutions can provide.

Network Transmission Flexibility Benefits

Multi-haul coherent solutions like the Pico DSP-based 1.2 Terabit solution are software configurable transponder modules that provide various transmission capacities and reaches. By varying the modulation order and baud rate settings, it can provide flexible options for service providers.

A multi-haul coherent solution addresses a range of network applications.

Balancing Modulation Order and Baud Rate

A common method of increasing throughput of a coherent channel is to increase the modulation order. However, this may result in a reduction in reach due to reduced optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) tolerance for the higher modulation orders. Alternatively, the baud rate could be increased while maintaining a lower modulation order which provides additional capacity per channel with minimal sacrifice to reach.

Maximizing the channel capacity using continuously tunable baud rate can convert unused spectrum into usable capacity, with the goal to fill up the available channel bandwidth. However, as discussed in this whitepaper, increasing baud rate provides minimal improvements in fiber capacity once the transmission is well-matched to the channel.

Increasing transmission baud rate proportionally increases the transmission spectrum and can be used to convert unused spectrum into useable extra capacity.

With transmission flexibility, service providers can configure their client traffic with the following flexible options:

• 12×100 GbE or 3×400 GbE with 64 QAM modulation for DCI edge applications
• 8×100 GbE or 2×400 GbE with 16 QAM modulation for metro/regional and long haul
• 4×100 GbE or 1×400 GbE QPSK for the most challenging terrestrial and submarine networks

To ensure a smooth migration from 100GbE to 400GbE, it’s important to have a solution that can efficiently transport either type of traffic, or a combination of both, without restrictions on performance and functionality.

Increase Performance and Reach with 400GbE Long Haul

With 400GbE becoming the “common currency” for high-capacity Ethernet transmission, it’s important to have a solution that can support this traffic over long distances. For service providers supporting 400GbE traffic they can use Acacia’s Pico DSP-based solution and choose from various configurations, as previously mentioned, including the option to combine two 400GbE client signals into an 800G 150 GHz channel for transmission over their metro and long-haul networks.

Leveraging Acacia’s Pico DSP-based solution service providers can combine two 400GbE client signals into an 800G 150GHz channel for long haul transmission.

Migrating from 100G to Higher Speeds Just Got Easier

Multi-haul coherent solutions enable network operators to easily migrate from 100G traffic toward 400G and higher speeds to deploy new and exciting applications and services. Networks utilizing flexible coherent transmission can provide support for growing client traffic across the entire network—from DCI edge, metro, long-haul, and all the way to submarine. Learn more in this video.

The Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) annual conference is the “Pacific Rim’s premier telecommunications event,” and Acacia will have a front row seat for it this year. PTC ‘19 kicks off Sunday, January 20 and runs through Wednesday, January 23, 2019, where subsea communications will be a hot topic, as organizations are faced with the challenge to enable increased utilization of deployed fiber for improved network capacity.

Given the fact subsea is of particular importance to Acacia and its customers, we’re excited it will be a big part of the “From Pipes to Platforms” theme at the conference – and that it comes on the heels of three subsea trials Acacia collaborated on and a blog article on the topic:

• Acacia announced the first 400G Transmission Across 6,600km Trans-Atlantic Marea Cable Using the Acacia AC1200 Coherent Module
• Cisco demonstrated the NCS 1004 driving a single wavelength of 300G over a 10,000km sub-sea link
• ADVA delivered 300G over trans-Atlantic distance in FSP 3000 TeraFlex trial
• Hongbin Zhang shared Two Key Elements Needed for Future Transponders in Submarine Systems in his recent blog post which discusses power limitations of submarine systems and reducing cost per bit for both transponder and wet-plant

“Transmission of 400G over 6,600 km is a significant milestone and demonstrates what can be achieved with higher performance transmission optics combined with a well-designed line system. This field demonstration of an advanced solution that is just becoming commercially available highlights the value of Marea’s open architecture to evolve with the latest technology. By allowing early adoption of new technologies such as Acacia’s AC1200, we are able to increase the utilization of our deployed fiber, maximize our investment and improve network capacity.”

—Mark Filer, Principle Optical Engineer, Azure Networking, Microsoft Corp.

The 400G subsea field demonstration, conducted by Acacia in collaboration with Microsoft and Facebook, helped to demonstrate that improvements in capacity and spectral efficiency can enable increased utilization of deployed fiber and improved network capacity. Modulation formats greater than 4 bits/symbol were utilized to achieve a spectral efficiency of 6.41 b/s/Hz on the 6,600 km cable. This was achieved using Acacia’s suite of 3D Shaping features that enable fine-tune adjustment of the modulation characteristics to provide network operators with the flexibility to customize the transmission to their network requirements. This is especially important in a submarine network where multiple providers share the same fiber link, and are trying to optimize its capacity utilization of their assigned spectrum.

In his recent blog post on the growth of submarine cables and how the Cisco NCS 1004 fits, Cisco’s Product Manager Optical Systems & Optics Group, Sushin Suresan, talks about how spectral efficiency is the key metric to maximizing capacity on expensive submarine cable assets.

The Cisco NCS 1004 is the latest product in the DCI form-factor NCS 1000 series. It delivers multi-haul coherent DWDM transponders that provide state of the art performance for sub-sea applications using granular baud-rate + bits per symbol tuning, time-hybrid modulation, transmit signal shaping and non-linear equalization. Each 2RU form-factor NCS 1004, powered by Acacia’s Pico Digital Signal Processor chip, provides 8 coherent DWDM ports that operate from 100G to 600G.

ADVA announced that its FSP 3000 CloudConnect TeraFlex succeeded in transporting 300Gbit/s of data per wavelength over a 6,800km fiber link. ADVA and Acacia conducted the trial, which was the first in the industry to cover the trans-Atlantic distance with a fiber link typical of a cost-optimized submarine cable using 300Gbit/s channels and a commercially available transponder with real-time digital signal processing (DSP). The demo, which also achieved the highest spectral efficiency for such a link carrying 300Gbit/s per wavelength with 70GHz channel spacing, highlights the capabilities of the ADVA FSP 3000 TeraFlex solution, which incorporates the suite of advanced performance features in Acacia’s Pico coherent DSP, to support flexible, ultra-high-capacity, long-haul and subsea data transport.

Triggered by the increasing demand for data driven by cloud-based services, we’re seeing a significant expansion in long-haul and subsea cable networks. We believe these trials give a major boost not only to long-haul and submarine network operators but also to cloud-content and digital media providers looking for ways to cost-efficiently deliver more to their customers around the globe.

Attending PTC? Alan Gibbemeyer, senior director of global business development at Acacia, will be on hand at the conference along with other members of the team to discuss these developments. To schedule a meeting at PTC ’19 contact us.