Four topics to follow on the virtual OFC exhibit floor

Okay, let’s get this out of the way immediately: There are a few features that you’ve enjoyed during past OFC exhibit hours that won’t be available during this year’s virtual event. They include:

• Coffee/cappuccino/espresso bars
• Beer and wine bars
• Various candies and other snacks
• Squeaky toys, yo-yos, balls, glow sticks, t-shirts, hats, and other tchotchkes to bring home to the kids and grandkids
• Pens – lots and lots of pens.

Of course, there’s bound to be at least one exhibitor who still holds at happy hour – a BYOB version. And you might be sent a debit card for a local restaurant or pub to take the place of a lunch or dinner with your favorite supplier. But it just won’t be the same.

However, one aspect of the OFC Exhibit Hall likely will remain unchanged, and that’s access to new technology. Here are four technology trends I’ll be investigating as I glide on a wave of electrons down the virtual exhibit aisles.

800G in multiple forms

Coherent 800-Gbps line cards are now shipping from Ciena and Infinera. Which means other optical transport vendors are playing catch up. Fortunately for them, we’ll likely see commercial sources of coherent DSPs for such transmission rates discussing their roadmaps. Meanwhile, optical component suppliers also should have new things to say about modulators, laser assemblies, receivers, and other technologies operating above 64 GBaud.

Meanwhile, OIF has launched work on specifications that should lead to 800G coherent pluggable optical transceivers. The 800G Coherent project will define interoperable single-lambda 800G coherent line specifications at campus and data center interconnect reaches. While the effort launched late last year and likely will continue through much if not all of 2021 (if not beyond), it’s not too early for technology developers to have given some thought to what hurdles will have to be overcome and how.

But the outside plant isn’t the only application for transmission rates of at least 800 Gbps. Both industry and the IEEE have begun to tackle what comes after 400 Gigabit Ethernet. As usual these days, industry multi-source agreements (MSAs) have jumped on the problem first. Both the Ethernet Technology Consortium and the 800G Pluggable MSA have launched specification efforts for 800-Gbps Ethernet transmission rates, and OFC 2021 would not be too soon for prototype modules based on either or both of these efforts to emerge.

What comes after 800G?

There aren’t any specification efforts underway yet for transmission rates beyond 800G (or, at least, none that have been publicly announced). But many of the building blocks for either 1.2 Tbps or 1.6 Tbps exist, particularly in the form of 2x600G or 2x800G components in the coherent realm. (NeoPhotonics touted 1.2 Tbps via 2x600G using its 64-GBaud components in 2018.) Unless there’s a new generation announced at OFC, merchant DSPs that could support such rates in a single device don’t yet exist. That said, it wouldn’t be surprising to find an exhibitor interested in touting its ability to blaze a trail in a greater-than-800G coherent direction. Along these lines, there will be a Market Watch panel on Tuesday, June 8, that promises to cover the road to 100-GBaud operation.

Meanwhile, many expected the new IEEE 802.3 Beyond 400 Gb/s Ethernet Study Group to lay the foundation for both 800 Gigabit Ethernet and 1.6 Terabit Ethernet standards. As of early May, the study group had limited itself to 800 Gigabit Ethernet, although Study Group Chair John D’Ambrosia was expected to make a case for taking up 1.6 Terabit Ethernet during an electronic meeting late in the month. However, there could be data center operators who might be willing to accept something from industry using single-lambda 100G technology or some combination of existing specs/standards, as has been the case with getting to 400G via 2x200G. Such a path could prove particularly appealing once electrical lane rates reach 100G. So there well could be discussion of such possibilities on the virtual show floor.

Co-packaged optics

Of course, there will be some who suggest that what will come after 800 Gigabit Ethernet will be co-packaged optics (CPO). Our cover story goes into the technology and some of the challenges in detail – and OFC attendees last year would have had the opportunity to view at least one demo of co-packaged optics if not for the pandemic’s early effects. As the cover story mentions, there are two primary approaches to CPO: internal and external lasers. Which ones might be represented on the virtual show floor will depend on the final roster of exhibitors; it seems likely representatives of the internal laser camp will be present, at the very least.

The commercialization of former science projects

There are some optical communications technologies that appear almost perennially within the conference program yet never, it seems, make it to the show floor. But the past few years have seen some technologies that long appeared destined to remain in R&D limbo finally make an appearance in commercial optical networks. Space-division multiplexing, for example, now represents a viable technology for submarine cable networks, with Google as a primary backer.

This year’s contender to graduate from an extended lab apprenticeship is hollowcore fiber. After OFS raised the visibility of the technology around the time of OFC 2020, reports of deployments surfaced late in the year. Meanwhile, at least one startup in the area, Lumenisity, recently has claimed multiple customers for its products. How widely deployed hollowcore fiber becomes will depend in large part on the transmission lengths it will support (and, of course, on its price). So we can expect to hear discussion of such performance parameters on the show floor (and perhaps within the conference program as well).