OIF offers CPO management white paper, touts 400ZR/800ZR interop survey

OIF members released a white paper on external light sources and co-packaged optics and re-elected a pair of Working Group chairs at the organization’s Q4 Technical and MA&E Committees Meeting, held in person and virtually November 1-3, 2022, in Kona, HI. The OIF also has launched a survey seeking feedback on 400ZR interops and demonstrations as well as interest levels in such activities for 800ZR and 800LR technology.

The new white paper, available on the OIF website, outlines the system management architecture OIF recommends to enable co-packaged optical transceivers to use lasers as external light sources. The paper also describes how OIF’s Common Management Interface Specification (CMIS) can be used for such applications. A key feature of such management is hosting the CW light source control intelligence in the host board controller rather than in the optical engines, the OIF says. The white paper is part of OIF's overall work in co-packaged optics (see, for example, "OIF completes co-packaging framework Implementation Agreement" and "OIF launches 3.2T Co-Packaged Module project").

Meanwhile, OIF is looking for survey input by December 7, 2022, from network operators and other stakeholders regarding the organization’s 400ZR demonstrations and plugfests. The group also seeks input on potential the interest in an 800ZR and/or 800LR OIF demo and what reaches of interest might be for 800G (800LR, 800ZR, > 800ZR). Survey participants do not need to be members of OIF; the survey is open to anyone who can represent the viewpoint of module vendors, system vendors, and network operators. Multiple responses per company are allowed. OIF says it will collate responses anonymously and summarized for presentation to the public. Those interested in the survey should email OIF.

“OIF members guide its demos and plugfests, and this survey supports new directions encouraged by our Interoperability Working Group Chair,” commented Karl Gass, OIF PLL Working Group – Optical vice chair, regarding the survey. “Leveraging the pre-demonstration plugfest as an opportunity to collect quantitative measurements of interoperability with multiple vendors provides critical input for current and future (800ZR) Implementation Agreements.”

Finally, OIF members Mike Klempa, Alphawave IP Group, as Physical & Link Layer (PLL) Interoperability Working Group Chair and Jeffery Maki, Juniper Networks, as Physical Layer User Group Working Group Chair for two-year terms.

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