While the near-term focus has been on how AI will affect the technology around short reach interconnects, there will certainly be an impact to interconnections beyond the AI clusters and beyond the AI data center, in hyperscaler networks.

The question is:  beyond the short-distance high-bandwidth interconnections, how would AI traffic impact the optical transport environment beyond the intra-building network and into the metro, long haul, and longer reach applications where optical coherent transmission is heavily utilized?

Figure 1.  Sales Forecast for Ethernet Optical Transceivers for AI Clusters (July 2024 LightCounting Newsletter, “A Soft Landing for AI Optics?”).

Effect of Past Applications on the Transport Network
Bandwidth-intensive computing is attributed to both AI training as well as AI inference, where inference refers to the post-training process in which the model is “ready for the world,” creating an inference-based output from input data using what it learned during the training process. In addition to AI training’s requirements for a large amount of computing power and a large number of high-bandwidth, short connections, there are also foreseen bandwidth requirements beyond the AI data center. To understand how network traffic patterns may evolve beyond the AI data center, let’s review some examples of how the wider transport network was affected by past growth of various applications. Although these applications may not strongly match the effect of AI application traffic, it can provide some insight into the effects that the growth of AI applications may have on optical transport, and thus on the growth of coherent technology.

If we look at search applications, the AI training process is generally analogous to a search engine’s crawling bots combing the internet to gather data to be indexed (AI training being much more computationally intensive). The AI inference process is analogous to the search engine being queried by the end user with results made available for user retrieval with minimal latency. While the required transport bandwidth for search bots and user queries are minimal compared to higher bandwidth applications, the cumulative effect of the search-related traffic is part of the contribution to overall transport traffic, including bandwidth from regional/local caching to minimize latency, as well as usage from subsequent traffic created by acting upon search results.

Understanding how network traffic was affected by the growth of video content delivery is another example that can inform potential AI network transport traffic patterns. A main concern resulting from video content distribution was the burden imposed on the network in delivering the content (especially high-resolution video) to the end-user. To address this concern, content caching, where higher demand content was cached closer to the end-user, was implemented to reduce overall network traffic from the distribution source to the end-user, as well as reduce latency. While it is too early to predict how much network traffic would increase due to expansive queries to and responses from AI inference applications, the challenge is to ensure the latency for this access is minimal. One could see an analogy of content caching to edge computing where the AI inference model is closer to the user with increased transport bandwidth required for these edge computing sites. However, the challenge would be to understand how this would affect the efficiency of the inference function.

Turning to cloud computing for insights on traffic patterns, the rise of (multi-) cloud and computing resulted in intra and inter-datacenter traffic (a.k.a. east-west traffic) increasing as workloads traversed across the datacenter environment. There’s a similar potential rise in this type of traffic with AI as data for training could be dispersed among multiple sites of clusters as well as inference models being distributed to physically diverse sites to reduce latency to end users.

For any of these previous examples, as the demand of these applications increases, the transport bandwidth requirements would also increase from not only the target data (e.g., search results, video), but also from overhead or intra datacenter traffic to support these applications (e.g., content caching, cloud computing, backend overhead). Traffic behavior for aggregating AI training content as well as the distribution of AI inference models and its results may be similar to the traffic patterns of these previous applications, applying pressure to network operators to increase capacity for its data center interconnect, metro, and regional networks. Long haul and subsea networks may also experience a need to expand to meet the demands of AI-related traffic.

Figure 2.  A scenario in which the network fabric physically expands due to facility power constraints, requiring high-capacity optical interconnections.

The Balance of Power and Latency
While the application examples above are related to how the AI application itself may affect bandwidth growth, what is becoming apparent is the power requirements to run AI clusters and data centers are significant. In the past, as the demand for cloud services grew, the need for large-scale data centers to have access to localized inexpensive power sources helped to drive the location selection for large data centers. However, power facility/availability constraints helped drive the adoption of physically distributed architectures, which then relied on high-capacity transport interconnects between data centers to maintain the desired network architecture (Figure 2). We anticipate a similar situation with AI buildouts requiring distributed facilities to address power constraints with potential trade-offs of reduced efficiencies for both AI training and inference. The distributed network would then rely on high-capacity interconnect transport using coherent transmission to extend the AI network fabric. Unlike cloud applications, physical expansion of the network fabric for AI applications has a different set of challenges due to compute and latency requirements for both training and inference.

Figure 3. Extremely low latency is required within the AI cluster to expeditiously process incoming datasets during the training mode. Since datasets are collected before being fed into the training cluster, the process of collecting these datasets may not be as latency sensitive.

As we plan for AI buildouts, one common question is how the physical extension of an AI networking fabric may affect AI functions. While geographic distribution of AI training is not ideal, facility power constraints are certain to lead to a growing adoption of distributed AI training techniques that attempts to mitigate introduced latency effects. As part of the training process, sourcing datasets feeding into the training cluster may not be latency sensitive and would not be as impacted by physical network extension (Figure 3). After training, when the inference model is complete, the goal is to minimize the latency between the user query to the inference model and the transmitted results to the user (Figure 4). The latency is a combination of the complexity of the query as well as the number of “hops” between the inference model and the user. Latency reduction when accessing the inference model, as well as methods to effectively distribute both the training and the inference function beyond a centralized architecture to address single-site power constraints, are ongoing discussions within the industry.

Whether driven by power constraints, dataset sourcing, or inference response efficiency, the sheer growth of AI applications will drive network traffic growth beyond AI cluster sites towards the wider network requiring high-capacity interconnects.

Figure 4.  Minimizing latency for AI inference is a key objective.

Trading off power requirements versus access to inexpensive and abundant power versus latency is familiar territory when it comes to bandwidth intensive applications. The outcome that optimizes these trade-offs is application dependent and can even be deployment-by-deployment dependent. We continue to watch the evolving AI space to see how these network architecture trade-offs will play out, with the impact of how the transport network is designed. High-capacity coherent transport can certainly influence these trade-offs. And as we have already seen, by using coherent high-capacity transport cloud architectures, networks were able to physically expand to alleviate power source constraints by provided fat-pipe links between sites. We anticipate a similar scenario with expanding AI network architectures.

The Ripple Effect
While the near-term focus on high-capacity interconnects for AI applications has been on short reach connections within AI clusters, we are already seeing bandwidth requirements begin to increase, requiring additional coherent connectivity between datacenters supporting AI. And while there is general agreement that the resulting bandwidth demand from AI applications translates to increased traffic across the network, we are at the early stages in understanding how specific segments of the network are affected. Coherent optical interconnects for high-capacity transport beyond the data center already provide performance-optimized transponder solutions at 1.2T per wavelength as well as 400G router-to-router wavelengths moving to 800G using MSA pluggable modules. This technology will continue to play a role in the transport solution supporting AI applications whether the expanding traffic is in the metro portion, data center interconnects, long haul, or beyond.

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

Once again, Acacia Communications will be heading to the beautiful city of Nice to attend and speak at Next Generation Optical Networking (NGON) and DCI World on May 21-23. It’s our 6^th year at this show, but this year is extra special because 2019 marks Acacia’s 10-year anniversary.

This provides the perfect opportunity to reflect on the company’s innovative track record, which has enabled coherent optical interconnect reductions in power, size and cost per 100G at a pace of approximately 40% per year. Through this continued innovation and working intimately with our customers, we have solved some of the toughest optical networking challenges in the industry. As we embark on Nice, we are thankful to have had the opportunity to help our customers succeed during the last 10 years, and we are excited about what we can do together in the future.

Also during the show, we are excited to have our own Tom Williams speak on a plenary panel titled “To the terabit & beyond – practicalities for coherent transmission.” He’ll be joined by executives from Cignal AI, Telecom Argentina, OIF and ADVA, and their discussion will center around current operational demands and the potential offerings to support adoption through strategies and technologies. Tom’s panel is scheduled for Wed. May 22nd at 9:30 am. If you want more info on what will be discussed, check out the session description.

Some of the other key topics to be discussed include the 5G evolution, reducing costs, increasing capacity, data center connectivity, network automation, pluggable networks and much, much more!

As always, Acacia’s goal is to deliver the products that help our customers win. Below are two prominent trends we are seeing in the industry and how we plan to help our customers participate in those application areas. We think these will be two hot topic areas at NGON and DCI World and we look forward to discussing these in detail with customers, carriers, partners, cloud providers and OEMs.

Multi-Haul Solutions

Customers are finding enormous benefit using coherent transmission with varying baud rates and modulation modes applicable to multiple types of networks as described in this video. Our AC1200 module, powered by Acacia’s Pico DSP, delivers the flexibility and industry leading performance customers need for these multi-haul applications. Delivering 2Tbps in a footprint 40% smaller than 5×7 modules supporting 400Gbps today, and supported by customer validation testing, the AC1200 has achieved significant industry momentum over the last year. Multiple network equipment manufacturers (NEMs,) including Cisco, ADVA, and ECI Telecom are currently introducing systems based on AC1200 and it was successfully used in the first 400G transmission across the 6,600km trans-Atlantic Marea Cable. The AC1200 also features an innovative 3D shaping technology that offers network operators the flexibility to customize the AC1200 transmission to their network requirements. All these features and more are what led to Lightwave Magazine awarding the AC1200 the highest score of 5.0 in its Lightwave Innovations Reviews Program this past March.

Edge and Access Applications

Coherent pluggables are evolving to the edge to solve capacity issues in network access and edge applications, enabling carriers to reduce CapEx/OpEx and increase reach. Acacia’s 100G/200G CFP2 module, incorporating our Meru DSP, offers simple integration and a pay as you grow commercial model. There’s also a lot of buzz around the 400G CFP2 and future 400G QSFP-DD and OSFP 400G pluggables utilizing the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) specification for 400ZR to address key applications such as point-to-point data center interconnect (DCI) and IP over DWDM.

We are looking forward to a great show this year and of course, we can’t wait to spend a few days at the stunning venue Palais des Congrès Nice Acropolis. If you are lucky enough to be attending the show, we’d love to meet with you, discuss the trends we highlighted above, or even toast to our 10-year anniversary at the annual beach party. Contact us and someone will get back to you to set something up.

You can also follow our updates from the show on Twitter @AcaciaComms or #NGON2019.

We look forward to seeing you in Nice!

For instance, 3D Shaping is a key feature in the recently introduced Pico-powered AC1200, a 1.2Tb coherent transceiver module which supports two wavelengths up to 600G each. There are three elements to 3D shaping, with each providing a real-world benefit. There’s shaping of probability, shaping of location, and shaping of spectral width.

Senior Manager of Technical Marketing, Eugene Park, breaks down the elements of 3D shaping and what it means to Acacia’s technology. Learn more in our video.

Tom and Stephen discussed how network operators can turn unused margin gaps into usable capacity with Acacia’s innovative technology. As technological advances enable solutions approaching the theoretical Shannon capacity limit, gains are becoming more incremental, and reducing cost-per-bit is becoming more challenging. Acacia’s innovative technology and feature set enables a path to breaking through the optical terabit barrier allowing users of the technology to deliver optical networks with high performance while lowering cost and power for various network applications including long haul, metro, and DCI-edge.

In this video, Tom discusses how 3D Shaping enables fine-tune adjusting of the line-side coherent modulation characteristics helping network operators optimize capacity and reach for their network. This is enabled by Acacia’s Pico DSP which powers our AC1200 coherent module. You can watch Tom and Stephen’s full conversation below.

This interview was just one of the many conversations the Acacia team took part in at ECOC this year. We had a full schedule of thought leader presentations, AC1200 1.2T demonstration and customer and partner conversations. Check out our pre-ECOC blog post to learn more about what we were up to at the show.

Stay tuned to the blog for more updates on Acacia’s Pico DSP, AC1200 coherent module, and the rest of our technology portfolio.

In a few short days several members of the Acacia Communications team are scheduled to attend the annual European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) Conference and Exhibition at the Fiera Roma in Rome, Europe’s largest optical communications event. On the agenda for this year’s show are topics ranging from next-generation data centers to optics as an enabler for 5G. We are bringing a full team to talk to customers and partners and to learn more about the advancements our colleagues are making in optical communication technologies.

The 600G Era

We’re looking forward to discussing the progress of coherent optical technology and the industry transition to the 600G (per-wavelength) era which where capabilities, such as high-baud-rate optics, fine-tuned coherent transmission flexibility, and enhanced forward error correction (FEC) algorithms, are raising coherent performance to new levels.

In addition, today’s technology is designed to enable common coherent optical hardware to achieve the high-performance finesse of a long-distance link, the sheer raw capacity for shorter edge links, and scales to applications in between. This is the reason why some refer to the 600G era coherent technology as multi-haul technology since the same set of hardware can address long-haul, metro, and DCI-edge networks.

Learn more about the 600G era by reading “Fill Capacity Gaps in Your Optical Network” just published in the Autumn Edition of Optical Connections Magazine.

AC1200 600Gbps per Wavelength Coherent Transmission Demonstration

Acacia plans to show its AC1200 coherent module with dual-core design enabling 1.2 Tbps error-free transmission over fiber with 600 Gbps per wavelength coherent transmission. The AC1200 also features high-baud-rate high-performance capabilities as well as fine-tuning of the transmission using 3D Shaping which optimizes reach and capacity utilization. 600 Gbps performance requires DSP and optics technology with both high bandwidth and high performance. Acacia’s AC1200 module, which is based on its internally developed silicon photonics technology, uses advanced techniques to minimize implementation penalties and high-gain soft-decision forward error correction (FEC) to improve performance margin. Not only does this allow AC1200 to achieve high capacity 600 Gbps per wavelength transmission, with up to 1.2 Tbps, but it also results in improved performance at lower data rates, such as 200 Gbps and 400 Gbps, compared to existing solutions.

Plug coherent in edge and access

Also at the show, we expect to hear a lot of discussion around advances in coherent technology to help meet growing bandwidth demand beyond the core. Today, coherent is moving from metro core to access aggregation networks. The industry is working to standardize coherent solutions for even shorter reach interfaces including two new specifications recently announced by CableLabs that are the result of a focused effort to develop coherent optics technology for the access network and bring it to market quickly.

We look forward to discussing Acacia’s participation in the industry organizations such as Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), IEEE, and Cable Labs and the trend towards using coherent solutions such as Acacia’s award-winning CFP2 for shorter distances.

Acacia Communications’ Thought Leaders to Present

In addition, Acacia Communications experts plan to lead discussions and share knowledge covering topics such as Digital Signal Processing (DSP), subsea communications, and lab automation. See below for a complete listing of who, when, where and what each plans to share with ECOC attendees:

Sunday, September 23, 2018

• 9:00-12:30 – Timo Pfau, principal DSP engineer, will present on “What can DSP bring to optical access” in the DSP for Next Generation Optical Access Workshop.
• 9:00-12:30 – Christian Rasmussen, founder and vice president of digital signal processing and optics, will share his thoughts on the “Future scaling and capabilities of DSP algorithms” in the Coherent DSP in Optical Communications Workshop.
• 9:00-12:30 – Hongbin Zhang, principal DSP engineer, will present on the “Future of transponders for submarine transmission” in the Submarine Systems Workshop.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

• 1:30 – 3:00 p.m. – BinBin Guan, optical engineer, will lead the Lab Automation Hackathon in which there will be eight demonstrations for various common lab automation tasks.

Wednesday, September 25, 2018

• 1:30 p.m. – Timo Pfau will present his invited paper titled, “High performance coherent ASIC” as part of the SC3 – Digital Signal Handling Techniques for Optical Communication Systems session.

Our team of experts is available to discuss Acacia Communications’ latest innovations in optical interconnect solutions. If you’d like to meet with Acacia at ECOC, contact us. We’d love your feedback!

It’s wheels up again for the Acacia team! This time, Fenghai Liu is headed to Shenzhen, China to present at the 20th annual China International Optoelectronic Exposition (CIOE), the world’s largest exhibition in the optoelectronic industry, which takes place September 5 – 7, 2018. He was invited by China Mobile to participate in the China Mobile – 5G Optical Network Development Summit on September 6^th.

At the conference, Fenghai is leading a discussion on Coherent Optical Modules in the 5G Era. His presentation will be first in the afternoon session on September 6, 1:30 p.m. – 5 p.m. CST (China Standard Time). He is Acacia’s Associate Vice President of Product Line Management & System Quality Assurance and has worked in optical transport systems and optical transceivers development for more than 25 years. His experience allows him to bring a unique perspective to what is needed for coherent solutions to thrive in 5G.

Over the last 10 years, coherent optical modules have been used widely in submarine, long-haul and metro networks, in part to the application of digital signal processing (DSP) and photonic integrated circuits (PIC). User expectations from mobile networks continue to escalate as wireless carriers prepare for 5G networking, which promises five times the bandwidth of today’s 4G networks. Liu is addressing the important role coherent optical modules can play in 5G transport networks as well as the new requirements and challenges in access, aggregation and core layers.

Coherent offers several benefits in these access aggregation applications compared to traditional direct detect solutions. At higher data rates, it becomes very challenging to deploy direct detect solutions over 10’s of km’s without using dispersion compensation. Alternatively, solutions may consider many parallel optical interfaces, but that drives up the cost of the solution.

Figure. 5G Backhaul network.

Today’s coherent implementations are generally based on tunable laser technology. While fixed laser implementations are a consideration in these applications, tunable solutions can offer operational benefits by significantly reducing the number of spares that need to be stocked. Tunable solutions also tend to support shorter lead times, accelerating the ability to turn up new services. Lastly, coherent solutions are future proof with the ability to scale capacity by increasing data rate or adding additional wavelengths

Adoption of coherent technology in access networks could offer an additional benefit that may not be obvious at first. Since the same solutions can address a wide range of network interfaces (e.g., access aggregation, metro, and regional), it may be possible to collapse the supply chain for multiple applications into a single solution. This could offer significant operational efficiencies for network operators.

If you’d like to meet with Fenghai at CIOC or learn more about the role of coherent modules in 5G networks, please contact us

See you in Shenzhen!

Nice, France here we come! The Acacia team is excited to attend NGON & DCI Europe 2018 this month for the fifth year in a row. There is always something fun to do in Nice, from attending NGON and the annual beach party at le galet to taking in the some of the local architecture designed by Buzzi, Bernasconi, and Baptiste.

We, of course, most look forward to hearing updates from industry luminaries about the future of optical networking and discussing Acacia Communications’ optical interconnect solutions and how they help meet the demands of today and tomorrow’s optical networks. We think some of this year’s hot topics will be:

• Addressing the need to grow capacity in access and edge networks with coherent ZR optics solutions
• Optimizing multi-haul network capacity
• Expanding data center interconnect bandwidth to 400G and beyond
• Leveraging coherent pluggable modules for applications including access, metro, and DCI to help reduce CapEX and OpEx and accelerate time to market
• Using coherent optics in wireless backhaul for 4G/5G

We look forward to connecting with our peers to discuss these topics. To schedule a meeting with Acacia Communications, please submit a request through our contact form.

You can follow our updates from the show on Twitter @AcaciaComms or #NGON2018.

We look forward to seeing you in Nice!

At the end of last year, we announced general availability of our CFP2 module, which Cignal AI analyst Andrew Schmitt called “the darling device of 2H17.” Acacia designed this module to help cloud and telecommunications providers reduce operational and capital expenses, increase reach and accelerate time-to-market of high-capacity solutions.

These pluggable modules are suitable for a wide range of network applications, including data center interconnect, metro access, metro core, and long-haul, as well as emerging applications including remote PHY and client optical interfaces up to 80 km.Acacia CFP2 Coherent Module

Yesterday, Oclaro and Acacia announced that the companies are teaming up to enable a multi-vendor environment of fully interoperable CFP2 modules based on Acacia’s Meru DSP. I talked with John LoMedico, VP of Corporate Development, who worked with Oclaro to ink the deal to find out more.

John LoMedico, VP of Corporate Development, Acacia Communications

Q: What exactly are Acacia and Oclaro announcing?

Until now, Acacia has been the only provider of production CFP2 modules, having announced general availability back in December of 2017. Now, the supply chain will have a second source — Oclaro and Acacia have entered into an agreement that allows Oclaro to launch a new CFP2 module based on the Acacia Meru DSP that will feature plug-and-play compatibility with the Acacia CFP2 module.

Acacia Meru DSP

Q: What does this mean for customers?

It means that customers will be able to buy fully interoperable CFP2 modules from two prominent coherent optical module companies, thereby providing a more robust supply chain with two sources, which customers’ desire.

With this agreement, we believe we have addressed a significant adoption hurdle for those Tier 1 network operators who require multiple sources. Acacia and Oclaro believe that this collaboration will increase the pace of adoption and degree of penetration of the Meru-based CFP2 format worldwide, thereby enabling Acacia to accelerate the adoption of the CFP2 DCO form factor at 100G/200G.

Q: Will the Oclaro and Acacia modules have common specifications?

The companies are working closely together to ensure that the specifications are interoperable with common specifications.  The modules will be plug-in replacements for each other.

Q: Will modules from other companies interoperate with Oclaro or Acacia modules?

To ensure interoperability at the higher performing proprietary 200G mode, it is necessary to use the same Acacia DSP leveraging SD-FEC.

Q: What about at 100G mode? Are there no interoperable modes available for other companies using lower performance industry standard FEC?

Interoperability is possible in the lower-performing 100G mode using HD-FEC. However, we believe the majority of use cases for CFP2 modules will require the highest performance possible for metro and regional networks thereby demanding the use of SD-FEC. As such, interoperability at the higher performing and proprietary 200G mode is only supported between Oclaro and Acacia Meru-based CFP2 modules.

Q: Does this signal a transition of the Acacia model toward merchant chip sales?

Acacia has always selectively engaged in chip sales where we feel it is strategically beneficial. While sales to an interoperable module vendor is a new model for us, we entered into this agreement with Oclaro based on our determination that this should be an opportunity for us to grow our sales. In the short and mid-term, we don’t believe there will be a significant impact to our historical mix of module and component sales. Over time, if the collaboration meets our expectations, we could see an increase in the volume of DSP sales through the relationship. We have also talked about our standalone PIC sales potentially impacting the mix of modules and components over time, as well.

Q: Do you think this will open up new markets?

We have been hearing from network operators that they would be more likely to deploy a CFP2 solution, in metro core and regional applications as well as emerging cable access and 5G applications, if there were a second source. We also know that larger NEM customers tend to prefer a multi-sourced ecosystem.

With a multi-vendor environment, customers will be able to buy fully interoperable CFP2 modules from Acacia and Oclaro. We see this as an exciting opportunity for Acacia and we believe a multi-vendor environment will help accelerate the adoption of the Meru-based CFP2 modules.

Transmission reaches for metro applications have to be above 50 km for metro/access and below 1000 km for metro/regional applications. This requires compact, scalable, cost-efficient, and easy-to-use digital coherent transport solutions such as the Acacia CFP2 module.

Figure 1: CFP2 coherent module

Acacia’s engineering team led by Hongbin Zhang recently demonstrated real-time transmission of 16 Tb/s (80x200Gb/s) over 1020km TeraWave ULL fiber with 170km span length using the 200Gb/s CFP2 module. The length, while much longer than typical metro/regional spans, was chosen to stress the OSNR budget while showing achievable amplifier spacing with ultra-low loss fiber. The results showed a record low power consumption less than 0.1W/Gbps. This is the lowest reported power consumption per bit for coherent optical transceivers.

Figure 2: Circulating loop setup for transmission experiments.

For the purpose of this experiment the CFP2 module was implemented in multi-source agreement (MSA) 107.5 mm x 41.5 mm form factor. Test specifics include:

• To test the 200Gb/s transmission performance as a function of OSNR for PM-8QAM on a 50GHz grid (4 bits/s/Hz SE) and PM-16QAM on a 37.5GHz grid (5.33 bits/s/Hz SE), we placed the 4 CFP2 channels next to each other in the middle of the C-band. One of the middle CFP2 channels was selected by a 50GHz optical demux in front of the coherent receiver and the real-time BER was measured as a function of received OSNR by varying the EDFA output power and subsequently converted into Q2-factor.
• To test the transmission performance as a function of the wavelength, we determined the Q2-factor from the measured real-time BER of the two middle channels among 4 consecutive CFP2 50GHz-spaced channels as they are moved across the C-band.

Relying on pluggable CFP2 transceiver modules, we were able to demonstrate successful 200Gb/s real-time transmission of 80 PM-8QAM and PM-16QAM channels at 4 bits/s/Hz spectral efficiency over 1020 km distance using very long 170km spans of TeraWave ULL fiber showing 2.8dB and 1.2dB Q²-margin, respectively. We were also able to prove an increase in system capacity as well as a decrease in power consumption per bit for coherent optical transceivers.

The research paper, published by Optics EXPRESS, is available to read or download here.