- News
8 March 2018
NeoPhotonics to demo Nano-ITLA ultra-compact external-cavity tunable laser for coherent 400G-1.2T applications, halving size from Micro-ITLA
© Semiconductor Today Magazine / Juno PublishiPicture: Disco’s DAL7440 KABRA laser saw.
In booth 3322 at the Optical Networking and Communication Conference & Exhibition (OFC 2018) in San Diego (13-15 March), NeoPhotonics Corp of San Jose, CA, USA (a vertically integrated designer and manufacturer of hybrid photonic integrated optoelectronic modules and subsystems for high-speed communications networks) is demonstrating its Nano-ITLA ultra-compact external-cavity tunable laser, along with its suite of coherent components for 600G and 1.2T as well as its broad family of products for high-speed applications.
The Nano-ITLA is based on the same proven and reliable external-cavity technology as the firm’s Micro-ITLA product line. It also maintains the ultra-narrow linewidth, the low frequency phase noise performance, and the low power consumption of the existing product in a compact package about half the size.
The Nano-ITLA uses an ASIC control IC that reduces the size of the electronic control circuitry. The laser can also be used separately with the ASIC mounted on the customer’s circuit board. Using both approaches, the Nano-ITLA is suitabe for use in 400ZR small-form-factor pluggable coherent modules, including OSFP and DD-QSFP, and for compact daughter cards for 600G and 1.2T applications.
Coherent communications is moving simultaneously to higher data rates per wavelength and to smaller form factors, requiring higher performance from the optical components at the same time that the size and power must be significantly reduced. Increasing the symbol rate to 64Gbaud and using higher-order modulation, such as 16 QAM to 64 QAM, can increase the data rate per wavelength to 400G or 600G. However, such higher-order modulation schemes are more sensitive to both amplitude and phase noise since the separation between states is necessarily reduced. This situation therefore requires the most stable, ultra-narrow-linewidth laser sources. The new Nano-ITLA uses a miniaturized design while maintaining the performance of an external-cavity approach, which results in high output power, low electrical power consumption and what is claimed to be the narrowest linewidth in the industry, resulting in high fidelity in higher-order modulation formats.
“This Nano-ITLA delivers all of the performance advantages our customers currently enjoy with our external-cavity design, but with the laser size reduced by half,” says chairman & CEO Tim Jenks. “Shrinking the size while maintaining performance is made possible by our advanced hybrid photonic integration technology,” he adds.
In addition, as part of the OFC technical conference, NeoPhotonics is participating in a panel discussion and co-authoring two papers:
- 12 March (11:15am), Paper M2C.3: ‘8×506-Gb/s 16QAM WDM Signal Coherent Transmission over 6000- km Enabled by PS and HB-cDM’, Jianjun Yu (ZTE) et al, with co-author Steve Dzioba of NeoPhotonics.
- 15 March (10:15-11:15am), Winston Way, NeoPhotonics CTO, Systems, is participating in a panel discussion ‘400G Coherent: What Does it Mean to You?’ as part of the ‘Intra and Inter Data Center Connectivity’ program in Theater II, Hall E.
- 15 March (10:30), Paper Th2A.21a: ‘Block-wise Time Domain Large Signal Model of Carrier-depletion Mach-Zehnder Silicon Photonic Modulators’, Qun Zhang (Minnesota State Univ) et al, with co-authors Jianying Zhou and Jin Hong of NeoPhotonics.
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