Inphi sampling first 400ZR QSFP-DD transceiver for cloud data-center interconnects

Inphi Corp of Santa Clara, CA, USA (a provider of high-speed mixed-signal ICs for communications, computing and data-center markets) has announced engineering sampling of COLORZ II, which is claimed to be the first 400ZR QSFP-DD pluggable coherent transceiver for cloud data-center interconnects (DCIs) to major cloud operators and OEMs.

COLORZ II enables large cloud operators to connect metro data centers at a fraction of the cost of traditional coherent transport systems and allows switch and router companies to offer the same density for both coherent DWDM and client optics in the same chassis. This eliminates a layer of network connectivity that was previously required and supports high-capacity DWDM connectivity directly from data-center switches.

COLORZ II 400ZR QSFP-DD is a cumulation of several industry firsts, including:

400G single-chip, coherent silicon photonics integrated circuit (PIC) that includes all transmit and receive functions;
low-cost, passive alignment of fiber to the PIC that eliminates the complicated active alignment, using traditional optics;
low-power, high-performance 7nm CMOS-based coherent DSP enabling 400ZR as well as extended-reach 100/200/300/400G ZR+ modes;
integrated industry-standard firmware management interface that enables full performance monitoring previously only available in DCI or transport systems directly from the optical module.

COLORZ II is said to represent a massive increase in switch rack capacity, while reducing the power consumption by as much as 80%. It delivers up to 14.4T of capacity per rack unit (RU), compared to 2.4T or 3.6T per RU on competing solutions, representing a 4-6x increase in throughput per chassis. Even emerging competing solutions with higher capacity per lambda are less than 50% capacity per 1RU line card, says Inphi. This improved density on COLORZ II is achieved via new levels of silicon photonics integration as well as dramatically decreased power consumption on all elements of the coherent transceiver.

COLORZ II enables cloud end users to lower the cost of scaling out their cloud data centers around the globe, says the firm. As cloud service providers continue to scale for rapidly increasing bandwidth demands with lower latency for their customers, the trend towards distributed regional data-center architectures accelerates. Compared with traditional massive data centers residing in single campus facilities, a more distributed architecture within each metro region provides several advantages including higher resilience and availability for end users.

400ZR is an interoperable standard with broad industry support. Motivated by the need to lower the cost and power consumption of DCI, leading cloud operators, OEMs, module and chip vendors have joined the Optical Interworking Forum (OIF) in the development of an industry standard for 400ZR. COLORZ II is claimed to be the first publicly announced product designed specifically for this application. Customers that deploy COLORZ II will be supported by a multi-vendor industry-wide ecosystem and not get locked into proprietary single-vendor solutions.

For end users looking for performance beyond 400ZR, Inphi’s new Canopus 7nm coherent DSP offers a multitude of reach and data rate options for metro and long-haul performance. As recently announced, there is wide support with a large ecosystem of system and module OEMs utilizing Inphi’s Canopus DSP that allows for interoperability with COLORZ II even for these extended-reach modes, including higher gain forward error correction (FEC), probabilistic shaping and encryption.

“We provide an expanding suite of choices for cloud network operators and OEMs to gain the flexibility of high-bandwidth DWDM connectivity in between data centers with the ability to rapidly scale their capacity,” says Dr Loi Nguyen, senior VP, Optical Interconnect, at Inphi. “By meeting the needs of cloud network companies that require extended link reaches, the 400ZR opens up new possibilities for DCIs to reduce total cost of ownership of cloud networks. As a fabless company we have proven our capability to quickly increase manufacturing and market share for our COLORZ 100G DWDM modules and are ready to meet our customers demand for COLORZ II,” he adds.
“Inphi’s sampling of the 400ZR module is the first to bring pluggable 400G coherent optics into the data center,” comments Andrew Schmitt, directing analyst at market research firm Cignal AI. “This groundbreaking technology economically enables edge data-center architectures for large cloud vendors and gives network operators worldwide the first look at standards-based pluggable coherent solutions.”

See related items:

Inphi announces commercial availability and production ramp for ColorZ

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