self-tuning Archives - EFFECT Photonics

Insights

February 14, 2024

Transceivers in Emergency Communications

Telecommunications are indispensable during emergencies and natural disasters for their pivotal role in coordinating emergency…

Telecommunications are indispensable during emergencies and natural disasters for their pivotal role in coordinating emergency responses, disseminating public safety information, and facilitating access to critical services. In times of crisis, efficient communication is essential for first responders, emergency services, and affected communities to collaborate seamlessly, allocate resources effectively, and ensure the safety of individuals.

Telecommunications also play a crucial role in family reunification, logistical support, and the gathering and disseminating of real-time information, contributing to well-informed decision-making and adaptive responses. Moreover, these communication channels provide emotional support, maintain social connections, and foster community resilience in adversity. As we navigate an unpredictable world fraught with natural disasters and unforeseen emergencies, the reliability of communication infrastructure becomes a lifeline for affected communities.

Optical transceivers for these disaster and emergency communications require specific characteristics to make them resistant to harsh environmental conditions and easier to install, deploy, and maintain. This article will dive into some ways that tunable transceivers can meet such requirements.

Self-Tuning Reduces Time to Service in Emergencies

Simplified provisioning and installation processes are essential to facilitate swift deployment, allowing responders to establish critical communication links without the burden of complex configurations. As time is often a critical factor during crises, transceivers should ideally adapt to the network environment to expedite the setup.

Typical tunable modules involve several tasks—manual tuning and verification of wavelength channel records—that can easily take an extra hour just for a single module installation. Self-tuning allows technicians to treat tunable modules the same way they do with grey transceivers. The network administrator could automate the configuration and provisioning of each transceiver unit from their central office, ship the units to each remote site, and the personnel in that site (who don’t need any technical experience!) just need to power up the unit. After turning them on, they could be further provisioned, managed, and monitored by experts anywhere in the world.

Figure 1: Short description and comparison of different approaches to wavelength tuning in optical transceivers, with the last one on the right being the self-tuning module.

Once plugged in, the transceiver will set the operational parameters as programmed and communicate with the central office for confirmation. These provisioning options make deployment much more accessible for network operators. This plug-and-play operation of self-tuning modules eliminates the additional time and complexity of deploying new nodes and DWDM links in optical access networks.

The Role of Remote Diagnostics

When disaster strikes, some areas may become isolated or pose safety risks, making on-site monitoring impractical. In these scenarios, remote diagnostics proves invaluable in maintaining communication links in hard-to-reach locations or those affected by adverse conditions. They enable real-time assessment of transceiver health, performance, and potential issues without direct physical intervention.

In EFFECT Photonics’ transceivers, the same channel that establishes parameters remotely during installation can also perform monitoring and diagnostics afterward. The headend module in the central office could remotely modify certain aspects of the tail-end module in the remote site, effectively enabling several remote management and diagnostics options. The figure below provides a visualization of such a scenario.

Figure 3: Visualization of remote diagnostics in an optical link. The headend module can check read tail-end module diagnostics such as wavelength channel number, temperature, transmitter, and receiver power. — Figure 2: Visualization of remote diagnostics in an optical link. The headend module can check read tail-end module diagnostics such as wavelength channel number, temperature, transmitter, and receiver power.

The central office can remotely measure metrics such as the transceiver temperature and power transmitted and received. These metrics can provide a quick and helpful health check of the link. The headend module can also remotely read alarms for low/high values of these metrics.

Industrially-Hardened Transceivers for Rough Environments

Typical transceivers reside in the controlled settings of data center machine rooms or network provider equipment rooms. These rooms have active temperature control, cooling systems, dust and particle filters, airlocks, and humidity control. In such a setting, pluggable transceivers must operate within the so-called commercial temperature range (c-temp) from 0 to 70ºC.

However, optical transceivers for emergency and disaster scenarios must survive the rough outdoor environments at the whims of Mother Nature. Transceivers should operate in the industrial temperature range (I-temp) for these outdoor settings from -40 to 85ºC. Higher altitude deployments provide additional challenges, too. Because the air gets thinner, networking equipment cooling mechanisms become less effective, and the device cannot withstand casing temperatures as high as they can at sea level.

Industrial hardening involves using robust materials, protective enclosures, and enhanced durability features, ensuring that the transceivers can endure the rigors of the outdoors. Making an I-temp transceiver means that every internal component must also be I-temp compliant. You can learn more about industrial hardening in the following article.

Takeaways

In times of crisis, the pivotal role of telecommunications in coordinating emergency responses and ensuring public safety cannot be overstated. The deployment of self-tuning transceivers reduces the time to service during emergencies by simplifying provisioning and installation processes. Their plug-and-play operation allows for swift deployment in remote locations, ensuring that critical communication links are established efficiently, even by personnel without technical expertise.

Remote diagnostics capabilities help maintain communication links in hard-to-reach or hazardous locations, enabling real-time assessment without physical intervention. In these cases, industrial hardening of transceivers also emerges as a critical necessity, ensuring their resilience in rough outdoor environments subjected to the unpredictable forces of nature. By meeting these requirements, optical transceivers become resilient components of emergency communication systems, contributing significantly to the reliability and effectiveness of communication networks when they are needed most.

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Tags: Adaptive Responses, Communication Infrastructure, Coordinating Emergency Responses, Crisis Communication, Critical Services, Emergency Communications, Family Reunification, First Responders, Industrial Hardening, Logistical Support, Natural Disasters, Optical Access Networks., Public Safety Information, Real-time Information, remote diagnostics, self-tuning, Swift Deployment, Telecommunications, Transceivers, tunable transceivers

The power of self-tuning access networks

Insights

January 31, 2024

The Power of Self-Tuning Access Networks

Article first published 16th February 2022, updated 31st January 2024. 5G networks will use higher…

Article first published 16^th February 2022, updated 31^st January 2024.

5G networks will use higher frequency bands, which require the deployment of more cell sites and antennas to cover the same geographical areas as 4G while existing antennas must upgrade to denser antenna arrays. On the side of fixed access networks, the rise of Remote PHY architectures and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) will lead to a similar increase in the density of optical network coverage.

Installing and maintaining these new nodes in fixed networks and optical fronthaul links for wireless networks will require many new DWDM optical links. Even though tunable DWDM modules have made these deployments a bit easier to handle, this tremendous network upgrade still comes with several challenges. Typical tunable modules still require several time-consuming processes to install and maintain, and that time quickly turns into higher expenses.

In the coming decade, the winners in the battle for dominance of access networks will be the providers and countries with the most extensive installed fiber base. Therefore, providers and nations must scale up cost-effectively AND quickly. Every hour saved is essential to reach targets before the competition. Fortunately, the telecom industry has a new weapon in the fight to reduce time-to-service and costs of their future networks: self-tuning DWDM modules.

Plug-and-Play Operation Reduces Time to Service

Typical tunable modules involve several tasks—manual tuning, verification of wavelength channel records—that can easily take an extra hour just for a single installation. Repair work on the field can take even longer if the technicians visit two different sites (e.g., the node and the multiplexer) to verify that they connected the correct fibers. If there are hundreds of nodes to install or repair, the required hours of labor can quickly rack up into the thousands.

Self-tuning allows technicians to treat tunable modules the same way they do with grey transceivers. There is no need for additional training for technicians to install the tunable module. Technicians only need to follow the typical cleaning and handling procedures, plug in the tunable module, and once plugged, the device will automatically scan and find the correct wavelength.

This plug-and-play operation of self-tuning modules eliminates the additional time and complexity of deploying new nodes and DWDM links in optical access networks. Self-tuning is a game-changing feature that makes DWDM networks simpler and more affordable to upgrade, manage, and maintain.

Host-Agnostic and Interoperable

Another way to save time when installing new tunable modules is to let specialized host equipment perform the tuning procedure instead. However, that would require the module and host to be compatible with each other and thus “speak the same language” when performing the tuning procedure. This situation leads to vendor lock-in: providers and integrators could not use host equipment or modules from a third party. This lock-in adds an extra layer of complexity and gives providers less flexibility to upgrade and innovate in their networks.

*Figure 1: Short description and comparison of different approaches to DWDM tunable modules.*

Self-tuning modules do not carry this trade-off because they are “host-agnostic”: they can plug into any host device as long as it accepts third-party 10G grey optics. Just as technicians can treat a self-tuning module as grey, any third-party host equipment can do the same. This benefit is possible because the module takes care of the tuning independently without relying on the host.

Enabling Simpler Network Management

Self-tuning lies at the core of EFFECT Photonics’ NarroWave technology. To implement our NarroWave procedures, we add a small low-frequency modulation signal to the tunable module and specific software that performs wavelength scanning and locking. Since this is a process controlled via software and the added signal is very small, it has no impact on these transceivers’ optical design and performance. It is simply an additional feature that the user can activate. The figure below gives a simplified overview of how NarroWave self-tuning works.

Figure 2: Example of a point to (multi-)point system including NarroWave self-tuning. Each of the 10G SFP+ modules is a full C-band tunable covering ITU channels 12 to 61. This link uses a single fiber for full duplex DWDM transmission, with unique wavelengths for up- and downstream links. When powered up, the modules will scan through different wavelengths, but in this case only the ‘correct’ wavelengths of channels 56 and 60 will go through the mux/demux unit and into the receiver on the other end. That receiver will then acknowledge reception of the signal.

Since self-tuning software requires exchanging commands between modules across the network, it can also enable remote management tasks. For example, our NarroWave communication channel can also allow the operator’s headend module to have read-write control over certain memory registers of the tail-end module. This means that the operator can modify several module variables such as the wavelength channel, power levels, behaviour when turning on/off, all from the comfort of the central office.

In addition, the NarroWave channel also allows the headend module to read diagnostic information from the remote module, such as transmitter power levels, alarms, warnings, or status flags. NarroWave then allows the user to act upon this information and change control limits, initiate channel tuning, or clear flags. These remote diagnostics and management features avoid the need for additional truck rolls and save even more operational expenses. They are especially convenient when dealing with very remote and hard-to-reach sites (e.g., an underground installation) that require expensive truck rolls. Some vendors have made remote installation and management of these modules even more accessible through smartphone app interfaces.

Takeaways

With these advantages, self-tuning modules can help rethink how optical access networks are built and maintained. They minimize the network’s time-to-service by eliminating additional installation tasks such as manual tuning and record verification and reducing the potential for human error. They are host-agnostic and can plug into any third-party host equipment. Furthermore, tunability standards will allow modules from different vendors to communicate with each other, avoiding compatibility issues and simplifying upgrade choices. Finally, the communication channels used in self-tuning can also become channels for remote diagnostics and management, simplifying network operation even further.

Self-tuning modules are bound to make optical network deployment and operation faster, simpler, and more affordable. In our next article, we will elaborate on how to customize self-tuning modules to better fit the needs of specific networks.

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Tags: access networks, DWDM, fixed access networks, flexible, G.metro, Integrated Photonics, OPEX, optical transceivers, photonic integration, Photonics, pluggables, remote diagnostics, remote management, self-tuning, Smart Tunable MSA, Transceivers, tuneability

Insights

January 11, 2023

Remote Provisioning and Management for Edge Networks

Smaller data centers near the end user can reduce latency, overcome inconsistencies in connectivity, and…

Smaller data centers near the end user can reduce latency, overcome inconsistencies in connectivity, and store and compute data closer to the end user. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, these advantages will drive the worldwide market for edge data centers to more than triple from $4 billion in 2017 to $13.5 billion in 2024. With the increased use of edge computing, more high-speed transceivers are required to link edge data centers. According to Cignal AI, the number of 100G equivalent ports sold for edge applications will double between 2022 and 2025, as indicated in the graph below.

Figure 1: Forecast of 100G port equivalents shipped for edge applications. These shipments are overwhelmingly 400ZR standard technology. Source: Cignal AI Transport Applications Report Q42021.

The increase in edge infrastructure comes with many network provisioning and management challenges. While typical data centers were built in centralized and controlled environments, edge deployments will live in remote and uncontrolled environments because they need to be close to where the data is generated. For example, edge infrastructure could be a server plugged into the middle of a busy factory floor to collect data more quickly from their equipment sensors.

This increase in edge infrastructure will provide plenty of headaches to network operators who also need to scale up their networks to handle the increased bandwidths and numbers of connections. More truck rolls must be done to update more equipment, and this option won’t scale cost-effectively, which is why many companies simply prefer not to upgrade and modernize their infrastructure.

Towards Zero-Touch Provisioning

A zero-touch provisioning model would represent a major shift in an operator’s ability to upgrade their network equipment. The network administrator could automate the configuration and provisioning of each unit from their central office, ship the units to each remote site, and the personnel in that site (who don’t need any technical experience!) just need to power up the unit. After turning them on, they could be further provisioned, managed, and monitored by experts anywhere in the world.

The optical transceivers potentially connected to some of these edge nodes already have the tools to be part of such a zero-touch provisioning paradigm. Many transceivers have a plug-and-play operation that does not require an expert on the remote site. For example, the central office can already program and determine specific parameters of the optical link, such as temperature, wavelength drift, dispersion, or signal-to-noise ratio, or even what specific wavelength to use. The latter wavelength self-tuning application is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Short description and comparison of different approaches to wavelength tuning in optical transceivers, with the last one on the right being the self-tuning module.

Enabling Remote Diagnostics and Management

The same channel that establishes parameters remotely during the provisioning phase can also perform monitoring and diagnostics afterward. The headend module in the central office could remotely modify certain aspects of the tail-end module in the remote site, effectively enabling several remote management and diagnostics options. The figure below provides a visualization of such a scenario.

The central office can remotely measure metrics such as the transceiver temperature and power transmitted and received. These metrics can provide a quick and useful health check of the link. The headend module can also remotely read alarms for low/high values of these metrics.

These remote diagnostics and management features can eliminate certain truck rolls and save more operational expenses. They are especially convenient when dealing with very remote and hard-to-reach sites (e.g., an antenna tower) that require expensive truck rolls.

Remote Diagnostics and Control for Energy Sustainability

To talk about the impact of remote control on energy sustainability, we first must review the concept of performance margins. This number is a vital measure of received signal quality. It determines how much room there is for the signal to degrade without impacting the error-free operation of the optical link.

In the past, network designers played it safe, maintaining large margins to ensure a robust network operation in different conditions. However, these higher margins usually require higher transmitter power and power consumption. Network management software can use the remote diagnostics provided by this new generation of transceivers to develop tighter, more accurate optical link budgets in real time that require lower residual margins. This could lower the required transceiver powers and save valuable energy.

Figure 4: Simplified example of signal degradation in a fiber link between two modules. Sources of loss include fiber connectors, splices, and intrinsic fiber attenuation. The performance margin is the difference between the expected Rx power and the receiver sensitivity. Higher-speed links (green) need a high Tx power and performance margin. Lower-speed links (red) can use a lower Tx power and performance margin.

Another related sustainability feature is deciding whether to operate on low- or high-power mode depending on the optical link budget and fiber length. For example, if the transceiver needs to operate at its maximum capacity, a programmable interface can be controlled remotely to set the amplifiers at their maximum power. However, if the operator uses the transceiver for just half of the maximum capacity, the transceiver can operate with a smaller residual margin and use lower power on the amplifier. The transceiver uses energy more efficiently and sustainably by adapting to these circumstances.

If the industry wants interoperability between different transceiver vendors, these kinds of power parameters for remote management and control should also be standardized.

Takeaways

As edge networks get bigger and more complex, network operators and designers need more knobs and degrees of freedom to optimize network architecture and performance and thus scale networks cost-effectively.

The new generation of transceivers has the tools for remote provisioning, management, and control, which gives optical networks more degrees of freedom for optimization and reduces the need for expensive truck rolls. These benefits make edge networks simpler, more affordable, and more sustainable to build and operate.

Tags: access network, capacity, cost, distributed access networks, DWDM, inventory stock, Loss of signal, maintenance, monitor, optical networks, plug-and-play, remote, remote control, scale, scaling, self-tuning, time

The Light Path to a Coherent Cloud Edge Banner

Insights

May 25, 2022

Improving Edge Computing with Coherent Optical Systems on Chip

Smaller data centers placed locally have the potential to minimize latency, overcome inconsistent connections, and…

Smaller data centers placed locally have the potential to minimize latency, overcome inconsistent connections, and store and compute data closer to the end-user. These benefits are causing the global market for edge data centers to explode, with PWC predicting that it will nearly triple from $4 billion in 2017 to $13.5 billion in 2024. Cloud-native applications are driving the construction of edge infrastructure and services. However, they cannot distribute their processing capabilities without considerable investments in real estate, infrastructure deployment, and management.

This situation leads to hyperscalers cooperating with telecom operators to install their servers in the existing carrier infrastructure. For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is implementing edge technology in carrier networks and company premises (e.g., AWS Wavelength, AWS Outposts). Google and Microsoft have strategies and products that are very similar. In this context, edge computing poses a few problems for telecom providers too. They must manage hundreds or thousands of new nodes that will be hard to control and maintain.

At EFFECT Photonics, we believe that coherent pluggables with an optical System-on-Chip (SoC) can become vital in addressing these datacom and telecom sector needs and enabling a new generation of distributed data center architectures. Combining the optical SoCs with reconfigurable DSPs and modern network orchestration and automation software will be a key to deploying edge data centers.

Edge data centers are a performance and sustainability imperative

Various trends are driving the rise of the edge cloud:

5G technology and the Internet of Things (IoT): These mobile networks and sensor networks need low-cost computing resources closer to the user to reduce latency and better manage the higher density of connections and data.
Content delivery networks (CDNs): The popularity of CDN services continues to grow, and most web traffic today is served through CDNs, especially for major sites like Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon. By using content delivery servers that are more geographically distributed and closer to the edge and the end user, websites can reduce latency, load times, and bandwidth costs as well as increasing content availability and redundancy.
Software-defined networks (SDN) and Network function virtualization (NFV). The increased use of SDNs and NFV requires more cloud software processing.
Augment and virtual reality applications (AR/VR): Edge data centers can reduce the streaming latency and improve the performance of AR/VR applications.

Several of these applications require lower latencies than before, and centralized cloud computing cannot deliver those data packets quickly enough. As shown in Table 1, a data center on a town or suburb aggregation point could halve the latency compared to a centralized hyperscale data center. Enterprises with their own data center on-premises can reduce latencies by 12 to 30 times compared to hyperscale data centers.

Type of Edge		Data center	Location	Number of DCs per 10M people	Average Latency	Size
On-premises edge		Enterprise site	Businesses	NA	2-5 ms	1 rack max
Network (Mobile)	Tower edge	Tower	Nationwide	3000	10 ms	2 rack max
	Outer edge	Aggrega- tion points	Town	150	30 ms	2-6 rack max
	Inner edge	Core	Major city	10	40 ms	10+ rack max
Regional edge		Regional	Major city	100	50 ms	100+ racks
Not edge		Hyperscale	State/ national	1	60+ ms	5000+ racks

Table 1: Types of edge data centers and their characteristics. Source: STL Partners

Cisco estimates that 85 zettabytes of useful raw data were created in 2021, but only 21 zettabytes were stored and processed in data centers. Edge data centers can help close this gap. For example, industries or cities can use edge data centers to aggregate all the data from their sensors. Instead of sending all this raw sensor data to the core cloud, the edge cloud can process it locally and turn it into a handful of performance indicators. The edge cloud can then relay these indicators to the core, which requires a much lower bandwidth than sending the raw data.

Figure 1 Global data center traffic vs. useable data created per year. Graphic sourced from Cisco Global Cloud Index.

Edge data centers therefore allow more sensor data to be aggregated and processed to make systems worldwide smarter and more efficient. The ultimate goal is to create entire “smart cities” that use this sensor data to benefit their inhabitants, businesses, and the environment. Everything from transport networks to water supply and lightning could be improved if we have more sensor data available in the cloud to optimize these processes. Distributing data centers is also vital for future data center architectures. While centralizing processing in hyper-scale data centers made them more energy-efficient, the power grid often limits the potential location of new hyperscale data centers. Thus, the industry may have to take a few steps back and decentralize data processing capacity to cope with the strain of data center clusters on power grids. For example, data centers can be relocated to areas where spare power capacity is available, preferably from nearby renewable energy sources. EFFECT Photonics envisions a system of datacentres with branches in different geographical areas, where data storage and processing are assigned based on local and temporal availability of renewable (wind-, solar-) energy and total energy demand in the area.

Figure 2: High-speed fiber-optic connections allow data processing and storage to move to locations where excess (green) energy is available. If power is needed for other purposes, such as charging electric vehicles, data can be moved elsewhere

Coherent technology simplifies the scaling of edge data center interconnects

As edge data center interconnects became more common, the issue of how to interconnect them became more prominent. Direct detect technology had been the standard in the short-reach data center interconnects. However, reaching the distances greater than 50km and bandwidths over 100Gbps required for modern edge data center interconnects required external amplifiers and dispersion compensators that increased the complexity of network operations. At the same time, advances in electronic and photonic integration allowed longer reach coherent technology to be miniaturized into QSFP-DD and OSFP form factors. This progress allowed the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) to create the 400ZR and ZR+ standards for 400G DWDM pluggable modules. With small enough modules to pack a router faceplate densely, the datacom sector could profit from a 400ZR solution for high-capacity data center interconnects of up to 80km. If needed, extended reach 400ZR+ pluggables can cover several hundreds of kilometers. Cignal AI forecasts that 400ZR shipments will dominate in the edge applications, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Forecast of 100G port equivalents shipped for edge applications. These shipments are overwhelmingly 400ZR standard technology. Source: Cignal AI Transport Applications Report Q42021.

Further improvements in integration can further boost the reach and efficiency of coherent transceivers. For example, by integrating all photonic functions on a single chip, including lasers and optical amplifiers, EFFECT Photonics’ optical System-On-Chip (SoC) technology can achieve higher transmit power levels and longer distances while keeping the smaller QSFP-DD form factor, power consumption, and cost.

Maximizing Edge Computing with Automation

With the rise of edge data centers, telecom providers must manage hundreds or thousands of new nodes that will be hard to control and maintain. Furthermore, providers also need a flexible network with pay-as-you-go scalability that can handle future capacity needs. Fortunately, several new technologies are enabling this scalable and automated network management.

First of all, the rise of self-tuning algorithms has made the installation of new pluggables easier than ever. They eliminate additional installation tasks such as manual tuning and record verification. They are host-agnostic, can plug into any third-party host equipment, and scale as you grow. Standardization also allows modules from different vendors to communicate with each other, avoiding compatibility issues and simplifying upgrade choices. The communication channels used for self-tuning algorithms can also be used for remote diagnostics and management, such as the case of EFFECT Photonics NarroWave technology.

Automation potential improves further by combining artificial intelligence with the software-defined networks (SDNs) framework that virtualizes and centralizes network functions. This creates an automated and centralized management layer that can allocate resources efficiently and dynamically. For example, AI in network management will become a significant factor in reducing the energy consumption of future telecom networks.

Figure 2: Comparing a traditional network approach (left) with an SDN/NFC approach (right).

Future smart transceivers with reconfigurable digital signal processors (DSPs) can give the AI-controlled management layer even more degrees of freedom to optimize the network. These smart transceivers will relay more device information for diagnosis, and depending on the management layer instructions, they can change their coding schemes to adapt to different network requirements

Takeaways

Cloud-native applications require edge data centers with lower latency, and that better fit the existing power grid. However, their implementation came with the challenges of more data center interconnects and a massive increase in nodes to manage. Fortunately, coherent pluggables with self-tuning can play a vital role in addressing these datacom and telecom sector challenges and enabling a new generation of distributed data center architectures. Combining these pluggables with modern network orchestration and automation software will boost the deployment of edge data centers. EFFECT Photonics believes that with these automation technologies (self-tuning, SDNs, AI), we can reach the goal of a self-managed, zero-touch automated network that can handle the massive scale-up required for 5G networks and edge computing.

Tags: 400ZR, artificial intelligence, cloud, coherent, computing, data centers, DSP, edge, edge data centers, infrastructure, latency, network, network edge, operators, optical system-on-chip, pluggables, self-tuning, services

Insights

May 4, 2022

The Growing Market for Tunable Lasers

The world is moving towards tunability. The combination of tunable lasers and dense wavelength division…

The world is moving towards tunability. The combination of tunable lasers and dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) allows datacom and telecom industries to expand their network capacity without increasing their existing fiber infrastructure. Furthermore, the miniaturization of coherent technology into pluggable transceiver modules has finally enabled the widespread implementation of IP over DWDM solutions.

Self-tuning algorithms have also made DWDM solutions more widespread by simplifying their installation and maintenance. Hence, many application cases—metro transport, data center interconnects, and even future access networks—are moving towards coherent tunable pluggables. The market for coherent tunable transceivers will explode in the coming years, with LightCounting estimating that annual sales will double by 2026. Telecom carriers and especially data center providers will drive the market demand, upgrading their optical networks with 400G, 600G, and 800G pluggable transceiver modules that will become the new industry standards.

Figure 1: Market forecast for coherent DWDM modules by data rate. Source: LightCounting Market Forecast Report (April 2021)

Same Laser Performance, Smaller Package

As the industry moves towards packing more and more transceivers on a single router faceplate, tunable lasers need to maintain performance and power while moving to smaller footprints and lower power consumption and cost. Due to the faceplate density requirements for data center applications, transceiver power consumption is arguably the most critical factor in this use case.

In fact, power consumption is the main obstacle preventing pluggables from becoming a viable solution for a future upgrade to Terabit speeds. Since lasers are the second biggest power consumers in the transceiver module, laser manufacturers faced a paradoxical task. They must manufacture laser units that are small and energy-efficient enough to fit QSFP-DD and OSFP pluggable form factors while maintaining the laser performance. Fortunately, these ambitious spec targets became possible thanks to improved photonic integration technology.

The original 2011 ITLA standard from the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) was 74mm long by 30.5mm wide. By 2015, most tunable lasers shipped in a micro-ITLA form factor that cut the original ITLA footprint in half. In 2021, the nano-ITLA form factor designed for QSFP-DD and OSFP modules has once again cut the micro-ITLA footprint almost in half. The QSFP-DD modules that house the full transceiver are smaller (78mm by 20mm) than the original ITLA form factor. Stunningly, tunable laser manufacturers achieved this size reduction without impacting laser purity and power.

Figure 2: Evolution of tunable laser form factors for coherent optics (2011-2021). Figure from Laser Focus World.

Versatile Laser Developers for Different Use Cases

The different telecom and datacom applications will have different requirements for their tunable lasers. Premium coherent systems used for submarine and ultra-long-haul require best-in-class lasers with the highest power output and purity. On the other hand, metro transport and data center interconnect applications do not need the highest possible laser quality, but they need small devices with lower power consumption to fit router faceplates. Meanwhile, the access network space looks for lower-cost components that are also temperature hardened.

Table 1: Summary of different use cases for high-performance tunable lasers.

These varied use cases provide laser developers with ample opportunities and market niches to provide fit-for-purpose solutions for. For example, a laser module can be set to run at a higher voltage to provide higher output power and reach for premium long-haul applications. On the other hand, tuning the laser to a lower voltage would enable a more energy-efficient operation that could serve more lenient, shorter-reach use cases (links < 250km), such as data center interconnects.

An Independent Player in Times of Consolidation

With the increasing demand for coherent transceivers, many companies have performed acquisitions and mergers that allow them to develop transceiver components internally and thus secure their supply. LightCounting forecasts show that while this consolidation will decrease the sales of modulator and receiver components, the demand for tunable lasers will continue to grow. The forecast expects the tunable laser market for the transceiver to reach a size of $400M in 2026.

Figure 3: Global Market sales for high-performance modulators and receivers as well as tunable lasers. (Historical Data and Forecast). Source: LightCounting Market Forecast Report (April 2021)

We can dive deeper into the data to find the forces that drive the steady growth of the laser market. As shown in Figure 4, the next five years will likely see explosive growth in the demand for high-purity, high-power lasers. The forecast predicts that the shipments of such laser units will increase from roughly half a million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2026 due to the growth of 400G and 800G transceiver upgrades. However, the industry consolidation will make it harder for component and equipment manufacturers to source lasers from independent vendors for their transceivers.

Figure 4: Units sold in the global market for Tunable Lasers components: legacy, high-purity low-power, and high-purity high-power (Historical Data and Forecast). Source: LightCounting Market Forecast Report (April 2021)

This data indicates that the market needs more independent vendors to provide high-performance ITLA components that adapt to different datacom or telecom provider needs. Following these trends, at EFFECT Photonics, we are not only developing the capabilities to provide a complete coherent transceiver solution but also the nano-ITLA units needed by other vendors.

Takeaways

The world is moving towards tunability. As telecom and datacom industries seek to expand their network capacity without increasing their fiber infrastructure, the sales tunable transceivers will explode in the coming years. These transceivers need tunable lasers with smaller sizes and lower power consumption than ever. Fortunately, the advances in photonic integration are managing to fulfill these laser requirements, leading to the new nano-ITLA module standards. However, even though component and equipment vendors need these tunable lasers for their next-gen transceivers, the industry consolidation can affect their supply. This situation presents an opportunity for new independent vendors to supply nano-ITLA units to this growing market.

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Tags: acquisition, coherent, coherent communication systems, coherent optical module vendor, coherent technology stack, datacenters, datacom, DWDM, high-performance, hyperscalers, independent, Integrated Photonics, lasers, noise, OEM, optical engine, optical transceivers, performance, photonic integration, Photonics, pluggables, power consumption, reach, self-tuning, Telecom, telecom carriers, Transceivers, tunable, tunable laser, tuneability, VARs, versatile

Press Releases

March 3, 2022

EFFECT Photonics joins the SmartTunable MSA Group

EFFECT Photonics announced today that it has joined the SmartTunable Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) group. This…

EFFECT Photonics announced today that it has joined the SmartTunable Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) group. This MSA seeks to develop common self-tuning algorithms that enable interoperability among the full C-band tunable wavelength transceivers of different vendors. Currently, these modules use proprietary Self-Tuning Optic (STO) schemes that do not work appropriately with each other. EFFECT Photonics will collaborate in the SmartTunable MSA with other market leaders in tunable wavelength transceivers — II-VI Incorporated and Lumentum — as well as AT&T, ADVA, NEC, LIGHTRON, and OE Solutions. EFFECT Photonics’ CCO Harald Graber explains: “Self-tuning will simplify installation and management of tunable wavelength modules, reducing the time to service and allowing operators to provide faster service to their customers. By joining the SmartTunable MSA group and promoting module interoperability, we can make self-tuning optics, and by extension, dense wavelength division multiplex (DWDM) technology, more accessible to everyone. Our experience in developing self-tuning procedures for our NarroWave technology will allow us to contribute to the MSA group’s key objectives.” To learn more or to participate, visit the SmartTunable MSA website. – End of press release – About EFFECT Photonics EFFECT Photonics delivers highly integrated optical communications products based on its Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical System-on-Chip technology. The key enabling technology for DWDM systems is full monolithic integration of all photonic components within a single chip and being able to produce these in volume with high yield at low cost. With this capability, EFFECT Photonics is addressing the need for affordable DWDM solutions driven by the soaring demand for high bandwidth connections. EFFECT Photonics is headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, with additional facilities in the UK, the US and Taiwan, and a worldwide network of sales partners. www.effectphotonics.com Tags: ADVA, AT&T, Harald Graber, II-VI Incorporated, join, LIGHTRON, Lumentum, NEC, OE Solutions, self-tuning, Self-Tuning Optic (STO), Smart Tunable MSA, SmartTunable MSA Group, SmartTunable Multi-Source Agreement (MSA

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