News: Optoelectronics
26 September 2024
Source Photonics unveils 1.6T and 800G PAM4 transceiver family at ECOC
With a live demonstration at the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC 2024) in Frankfurt, Germany (23–25 September), Source Photonics Inc of West Hills, CA, USA (which provides communications and data connectivity solutions for hyperscale and AI data centers, metropolitan area networks and access networks) announced product availability of its transceiver portfolio, including 1.6T and 800G optical modules/AOC/DAC based on single-lambda 200G PAM4 technology, the latest 800G 4×200G DR4/FR4/LR4 and 400G/800G optical modules supporting immersion liquid cooling. The firm says that this represents a critical milestone for enabling next-generation 51.2T and 102.4T switch platforms for accelerated AI compute infrastructure.
Source Photonics’ latest 1.6T product series includes DR8, 2xFR4 optical modules and DAC/ACC copper cables. The 800G product series includes SR8, DR8, 2xFR4 based on single-lambda 100G, and DR4, FR4, and LR4 modules based on single-lambda 200G, as well as DAC/ACC/AEC copper cables packaged in either OSFP or QSFP-DD form factors covering multiple optical connector and interface options.
Source Photonics began production shipments of 100G single-lambda PAM4-based 100G/400G transceivers when 400G industry adoption started to take off from 2021. Over 7.5 million high-speed 28/53GBd externally modulated laser (EML) chips have since been shipped. The newly released product-grade 100GBd EMLs enable 200Gb/s single-lambda PAM4 signaling for shipping 1.6T and 800G transceivers. The 800G FR4/LR4 optical modules were demonstrated at the ECOC exhibition. The optical modules leverage self-developed 200G PAM4 EML lasers operating around the O band, including CWDM wavelengths of 1271nm/1291nm/1311nm/1331nm and LWDM wavelengths at 1295.5nm/1300.0nm/1304.5nm/1309.1nm. It operates error free under KP4 + inner code FECi threshold of 4.85x10-3 at 113.4GBaud, and supports up to 10km single-mode fiber transmission, exceeding IEEE Std 802.3ck-2022 and IEEE P802.3dj D1.1 specifications.
“Highly integrated and reliable 200G PAM4 EMLs double the optical bandwidth of current solution to enable 1.6Tbps pluggable modules for scaling AI cluster in data centers, which facilitate the industry transition to 51.2Tbps per RU networking architectures,” says chief technology officer Dr Frank Chang. “The latest generation of 800G family of products reduces power consumption per bit by over 20%.” The transceivers support backward compatibility and flexibility for smoothly upgrading from 400G to 800G and then 1.6T. “The successful commercialization of 800G DR4/FR4/LR4 and the associated 1.6T DR8/2xFR4/2xLR4 optical transceivers represent our commitment in optical connectivity innovation to deliver next-generation pluggable transceivers,” says Chang.
Source Photonics at ECOC 2024 exhibition
Live demonstrations of the 800G 4×226.8G PAM4 FR4/LR4 QSFP-DD optical modules were conducted during the ECOC 2024 exhibition, together with 1.6T, 800G, 400G/800G 2PIC, LPO/LRO, 10/25G/100G tunable and 25/50G PON high-performance optical transceiver solutions. Also at ECOC, Source Photonics delivered a speech on 200G/lane-based 800G/1.6T optical transceivers.
