News: Optoelectronics
2 December 2020
NeoPhotonics launches Class 60 coherent modulator and receiver for 100+Gbaud symbol rates
NeoPhotonics Corp of San Jose, CA, USA – a vertically integrated designer and manufacturer of silicon photonics and hybrid photonic integrated circuit (PIC)-based lasers, modules and subsystems for high-speed communications – has added Class 60 versions of its coherent driver-modulator (CDM) and micro-intradyne coherent receiver (Micro-ICR) to its suite of high-bandwidth coherent components, addressing the next generation of 100+Gbaud systems to meet the ongoing growth in demand for bandwidth, especially between cloud data centers.
Optical performance improvement due to increased baud rates enables customers to pack more data over longer distances for better economics, lower cost per bit, lower operating expenses and lower power consumption, all under the same hardware envelope as NeoPhotonics’ existing Class 40 components.
The new Class 60 coherent components extend the highest-speed-over-distance performance of the firm’s existing Class 50 products by increasing the 3dB bandwidth from 50GHz to 60GHz. The Class 60 suite improves on the currently shipping Class 40 components, and allows increasing symbol rates from the existing 64+Gbaud rate to the higher 100+Gbaud rates. These components work together to enable users to implement single-wavelength data transmission near 1 Terabit per second over data-center interconnect (DCI) distances, and long-haul 400–500Gbps transmission.
Higher symbol rates increase data capacity while maintaining superior optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) and reach performance, enabling the highest-speed-over-distance use. The new components are available in compact form-factor packages suitable for use in pluggable modules and compact daughter cards. NeoPhotonics’ Class 60 CDM and micro-ICR are mechanically compatible to their Class 40 counterparts, and are a natural upgrade path for achieving the higher symbol rates (100+Gbaud) in order to support 800Gbps-and-above data rates per wavelength applications.
The Class 60 suite comprises:
- the Class 60 polarization-multiplexed coherent driver-modulator (CDM), featuring a co-packaged indium phosphide (InP) modulator with four linear, high-bandwidth differential drivers, and designed for low V-Pi, low insertion loss and a high extinction ratio – the compact package is designed to be compliant with the form factor of the OIF Implementation Agreement #OIF-HB-CDM-01.0;
- the Class 60 high-bandwidth micro-intradyne coherent receiver (Micro-ICR), designed for 100+Gbaud symbol rates (more than tripling the rate of standard 100G ICRs) – the compact package is designed to be compliant with the OIF Implementation Agreement OIF-DPC-MRX-02.0.
The components are designed to work together with NeoPhotonics ‘Nano’ ultra-narrow-linewidth external-cavity tunable laser, which approximately halves the size compared with existing micro-ITLAs (integrated tunable laser assemblies), while featuring what is claimed to be industry-leading linewidth and low phase noise with low electrical power consumption.
“NeoPhotonics has supported our customers by being first to volume production of our products at each new speed node,” says chairman & CEO Tim Jenks. “We are pleased to now offer Class 60 coherent modulators and receivers which, along with our ultra-narrow-linewidth external-cavity ‘nano’ tunable laser, provide a complete suite of components enabling customers to increase the data rate per wavelength to 1 Terabit and beyond,” he adds. “We are continuing to extend the bandwidth of our indium phosphide coherent integration platform to serve the highest-speed-over-distance applications,” concludes Jenks.
