News Article
Agreement signed to energise 1550nm silicon photonics
The new multi-source agreement will define QSFP optical transceivers for 100G data centre networks on a single mode fibre (SMF) infrastructure
Mellanox Technologies and Ranovus have founded an industry consortium to standardise Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) for an interoperable 100G WDM standard for 2 km reach, covering large cloud data centre interconnectivity requirements.
Mellanox is a supplier of end-to-end interconnect solutions for data centre servers and storage systems. Ranovus is a provider of multi-terabit interconnect solutions for data centre and communications networks.
The OpenOptics multi-source agreement (MSA) combines 1550 nm WDM laser and silicon photonics for QSFP-based solutions enabling low cost, high density, and high bandwidth single mode fibre (SMF) connectivity, significantly improving terabit-scale data centre infrastructure ROI.
"As the migration of data centre network connectivity towards Leaf and Spine architecture accelerates, operators require innovative interconnect solutions to enable a scalable infrastructure at much better economics," says Saeid Aramideh, chief marketing and sales officer for RANOVUS.
"We believe that the application of a multi-channel channel laser source coupled with silicon photonics to enable connectivity in 1550 nm band in QSFP form/factor is a game changer in reducing the data centre fibre plant connectivity cost by four to seven times compared to legacy multi-mode fibre implementations."
The OpenOptics MSA will add additional members to this consortium to achieve a multi-sourcing supply chain.
The key highlights of OpenOptics MSA specification are:
100Gb/s, 1550 nm C-band, 4x25Gb/s WDM
Industry Standard Media: Single pair of single mode fibre (SMF)
Reach: 2 km and beyond
Standard WDM Spacing: ITU-T grid
Industry Standard Form Factor: QSFP28
Scalable data rates: 400G and beyond
"Our cloud customers want to deploy data centre infrastructure that allows seamless upgrades to the interconnect just as they do in server, storage and network hardware," says Shai Cohen, COO of Mellanox Technologies. "With 100G interconnects approaching commercialisation in data centres, OpenOptics MSA brings 100G WDM technology to data centre economics, density, power consumption, and 2 km link scalability on single mode fibre infrastructure."
"Data centre needs are accelerating. The growth of cloud data centres poses a triple challenge for technology: first, they need 100G sooner than others, but they also need it to be high-density, low-cost and easy to deploy from the start. The third challenge will be that they will move on quickly to the next speeds of 400G and 1Tb soon," concludes Karen Liu, principal analyst with Ovum. "Alignment of industry efforts like OpenOptics MSA will be critical to meet this challenge by bringing WDM and single-mode fibre solutions tailored for data centres."
