25 March 2015

Inphi adds quad linear differential to single-ended MZM driver to first 45GBaud linear coherent product family

Inphi Corp of Santa Clara, CA, USA, a provider of high-speed mixed-signal ICs for communications, data-center and computing markets, is adding to its 45GBaud linear coherent product family by sampling the IN4518SZ quad linear differential to single-ended Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) driver.

Pin-compatible with the field-deployed linear driver IN3214SZ, for 200G coherent optical interconnect applications, the IN4518SZ extends the reach of 200G coherent for long-haul applications and enables one set of hardware to serve multiple segments in the long-haul and metro markets. The IN4518SZ is being showcased in booth #709 at the Optical Fiber Communications conference & exposition (OFC 2015) in Los Angeles (24-26 March).

Inphi's 45GBaud linear coherent product family was originally announced at September's European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC 2014) with the IN4514SZ octal linear differential to single-ended MZM driver and the IN4550TA quad linear TIA/VGA (trans-impedance amplifier/variable gain amplifier).

Due to the ever-growing demand for more bandwidth, service providers and data-center operators are actively deploying 100G and 200G for long-haul and metro, while development accelerates for the next-generation higher capacity, says Inphi. The family of IN4514SZ, IN4518SZ and IN4550TA is designed to take network infrastructure to the next level, enabling the critical implementation of more complex and flexible modulation formats for 200G and 400G coherent systems in the long-haul and metro networks.

"Cost is currently the primary limitation to wider adoption of coherent technology for metro and long-haul applications," comments Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst Carrier Transport Networking at Infonetics Research. "With this new product Inphi is helping to reduce the cost and accelerate the adoption of 200G coherent systems," he adds.

"The IN4518SZ is the latest addition to our 45GBaud linear family to address market demands for high-performance linear drivers that can manage the growing traffic between data centers," says Lian Zhao, product line manager, Optical Interconnect, at Inphi. "It affirms Inphi's market leadership to enable dynamic, next-generation optical networking and gives existing 100G/200G coherent system designs an efficient upgrade path to 400G beyond," he claims. 

Tags: Inphi MZM quad linear driver

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