In booth 2709 at Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC 2016) in Anaheim, CA, USA (22-24 March), optical communication product maker Source Photonics Inc of West Hills, CA, USA is demonstrating a 2x50G-PAM4 QSFP28 100G module, adding to its portfolio of small-form-factor 100G products. The PAM4 demonstration follows the launch of the firm's 100G QSFP28 LR4 platform of products. Source Photonics announced industry-first samples of LR4 and LR4 Lite modules in March 2014 and mass production in March 2015. This January it announced shipment of its 10,000th QSFP28 module.
For 100G-and-higher products, Source Photonics has developed a common platform using externally modulated laser (EMLs) for both 2km and 10km CWDM4, LR4 Lite and LR4 products operating with typical power consumption of less than 3.5W. The unique design reduces component count and complexity versus directly modulated laser (DML) solutions and enables the firm to leverage the same design blocks and manufacturing footprint to support all three products and future products like 50G-PAM4 and 100G-PAM4.
Source Photonics has now taken the next step by reducing the complexity and component count of 100G transceivers by a factor of two using 50G-PAM4 modulation. The 2x50G-PAM4 QSFP28 will operate at a worst-case power consumption of 3.5W at 70°C case temperature and support KR4 FEC in the host IC. The firm is also in development to support a KP4 FEC implementation similar to the FR8 requirements for 8-channel 400G standards.
Source Photonics - which has now released 100G QSFP28 LR4, QSFP28 LR4 Lite, CFP4 LR4 and CFP4 OTU4 to mass production, and will be in production on the QSFP28 CWDM4 by the end of second-quarter 2016 - continues to grow its portfolio of 100G+ product offerings.
"Cloud-scale and Web 2.0 datacenters are demanding increased volume and lower-cost 100G small-form-factor products, and reducing component count is a critical long-term solution," says chief scientist Sheng Zhang. "We are demonstrating a major step towards the productization of PAM4 technology that will be instrumental in the cost reduction of 100G QSFP28 products and the release of initial 400G products.
