- News
13 March 2018
Infinera unveils first 2.4Tb/s optical engine for data-center interconnect and fiber-deep architectures
© Semiconductor Today Magazine / Juno PublishiPicture: Disco’s DAL7440 KABRA laser saw.
Infinera Corp of Sunnyvale, CA, USA, a vertically integrated manufacturer of digital optical network systems incorporating its own indium phosphide-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs), has added to its family of Infinite Capacity Engines by unveiling ICE5, which is claimed to be the first 2.4 terabits per second (Tb/s) optical engine.
ICE5 is targeted at internet content providers (ICPs) scaling connections between data centers and communications service providers (CSPs) planning fiber-deep architectures including distributed access architecture (DAA) and 5G mobile backhaul. Optical engines play a key role in maximizing both the technical and economic performance of optical network systems. Infinera say that it is building on the ICE4 optical engine in metro, long-haul and subsea applications to introduce ICE5 and demonstrate an increasing cadence toward ICE6.
Gartner’s forecast for cloud computing anticipates a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% through 2020 and the Ericsson Mobility Report expects total mobile data traffic to rise at a CAGR of 42% through 2022, accelerating demand for optical network capacity at ICPs and CSPs worldwide.
ICE5 builds on ICE4’s optical performance and economics by integrating Infinera’s fifth-generation photonic integrated circuit with a FlexCoherent digital signal processor (DSP) and fine-grain software control to deliver 100-600Gb/s per wavelength in a 2.4Tb/s optical engine. ICE5 is claimed to unlock unprecedented capacity, reach, spectral and power efficiency, designed for over 40Tb/s on a single fiber within a fraction of a data-center rack, increasing capacity by up to 65% over currently deployed networks while reducing power by 60%.
Infinera Instant Network enables software automation of ICE-based platforms, allowing users to pay for capacity as they need it, matching expense to revenue, increasing network agility, and lowering total cost of ownership. More than 70 Infinera customers (including the top three subsea customers and more than 60% of data-center interconnect customers) rely on Infinera Instant Network to scale capacity on demand.
“Cloud and fiber-deep architectures will accelerate the demand for optical network capacity,” comments Jimmy Yu, market analyst firm Dell’Oro Group’s VP of Optical Transport and Mobile Backhaul. “This means future optical DWDM systems will have to deliver higher single-wavelength speeds sooner and be agile enough to be used in metro as well as long-haul environments. Infinera’s plan for ICE5 fits well with our five-year projection that DWDM demand will grow faster in metro access and aggregation locations due to data-center interconnect, 5G backhaul, and fiber-deep,” he adds.
“With ICE5 we are bringing our leading-edge technologies to market faster than ever, enabling our ICP and CSP customers to respond quickly to explosive bandwidth growth,” says Infinera founder, chief strategy and technology officer Dr Dave Welch.
Infinera Intelligent Transport Network platforms with ICE5 are planned for availability in early 2019.
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