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8 March 2018
Kaiam to demo 8-lane single-mode 400G QSFP-DD using LightScale2 platform
© Semiconductor Today Magazine / Juno PublishiPicture: Disco’s DAL7440 KABRA laser saw.
In booth #3945 at the Optical Networking and Communication Conference & Exhibition (OFC 2018) in San Diego (13-15 March), data-center optical transceiver maker Kaiam Corp of Newark, CA, USA is demonstrating what it claims is the industry’s highest-density 8-lane single-mode 400G transceiver in a QSFP-DD form factor, enabled by the same LightScale2 architecture used in the firm’s XQX5000 series of 100GBASE-CWDM4 QSFP28 pluggables.
The simplified, flattened, non-hermetic LightScale2 platform supports the dense requirements of 8 lanes of 50G PAM4 (4-level pulse amplitude modulation) in a QSFP-DD package with what is claimed to be excellent signal integrity and thermal performance. The LightScale2 platform is optimized for high-volume, low-cost manufacturing and flexibly supports both 4-lane and 8-lane 200G and 400G transceiver variants, including 400G-LR8/FR8, 400G-FR4, 2x100G-LR4, 2x100G-CWDM4, 2x100G-4WDM-10, 200G-FR4, and 2x200G-FR4. These can be supported in either QSFP-DD or OSFP packages. The platform can further extend to future 800G solutions, and even beyond pluggables to Kaiam’s Co-Packaged Photonics Interconnect (CoPPhI).
“As capacity and density requirements increase in the data center, our MEMS-based PLC [photonic lightwave circuit] approach further outperforms traditional approaches,” says CEO Bardia Pezeshki. “At OFC 2018, we are demonstrating a transceiver that has 4x the bandwidth of the previous generation in roughly the same QSFP form factor, highlighting the bandwidth and density scalability of Kaiam’s technology,” he adds.
“We are seeing market need for 400G QSFP-DD transceivers in 2019, but uncertainty and skepticism about whether transceiver vendors can deliver cost-effective solutions at scale with the high speeds needed per lane and the desired reach,” comments Jeremy Dietz, VP of global sales & marketing. “Our ability to offer a simple 8-channel 400G solution in advance of the more complex 4-channel electronics, with the full 10km reach, gives the customers faster and easier access to 400G in the desired compact form factor.”
The LightScale2 platform leverages Kaiam’s core technologies: Optical Wire Bond (OWB) hybrid optical integration, and SCOTS PLCs. OWB harnesses MEMS to enable hybrid optical integration of best-in-class technologies with high optical coupling efficiency, high parallelism, compactness, robustness and low cost. Kaiam’s PLCs provide key transceiver optical functions such as wavelength mux/demux, power splitting, and mode size conversion. The firm says that the fundamental flexibility and extensibility of these core technologies expands the horizon of its product roadmap to 400G, 800G and beyond.
Kaiam shipping LightScale2 platform in volume for 100G CWDM4
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