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Insights

May 3, 2023

The Promise of Integrated Quantum Photonics

Today’s digital society depends heavily on securely transmitting and storing data. One of the oldest…

Today’s digital society depends heavily on securely transmitting and storing data. One of the oldest and most widely used methods to encrypt data is called RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman – the surnames of the algorithm’s designers). However, in 1994 mathematician Peter Shor proved that an ideal quantum computer could find the prime factors of large numbers exponentially more quickly than a conventional computer and thus break RSA encryption within hours or days.

While practical quantum computers are likely decades away from implementing Shor’s algorithm with enough performance and scale to break RSA or similar encryption methods, the potential implications are terrifying for our digital society and our data safety.

Given these risks, arguably the most secure way to protect data and communications is by fighting quantum with quantum: protect your data from quantum computer hacking by using security protocols that harness the power of quantum physics laws. That’s what quantum key distribution (QKD) does.

*Figure 1: Example of a communications link encrypted via QKD* *[Source:* *TU Eindhoven*]

The quantum bits (qubits) used by QKD systems can be photons, electrons, atoms, or any other system that can exist in a quantum state. However, using photons as qubits will likely dominate the quantum communications and QKD application space. We have decades of experience manipulating the properties of photons, such as polarization and phase, to encode qubits. Thanks to optical fiber, we also know how to send photons over long distances with relatively little loss. Besides, optical fiber is already a fundamental component of modern telecommunication networks, so future quantum networks can run on that existing fiber infrastructure. All these signs point towards a new era of quantum photonics.

Photonic QKD devices have been, in some shape or form, commercially available for over 15 years. Still, factors such as the high cost, large size, and the inability to operate over longer distances have slowed their widespread adoption. Many R&D efforts regarding quantum photonics aim to address the size, weight, and power (SWaP) limitations. One way to overcome these limitations and reduce the cost per device would be to integrate every QKD function—generating, manipulating, and detecting photonic qubits—into a single chip.

Integration is Key to Bring Lab Technology into the Market

Bringing quantum products from lab prototypes to fully realized products that can be sold on the market is a complex process that involves several key steps.

One of the biggest challenges in bringing quantum products to market is scaling up the technology from lab prototypes to large-scale production. This requires the development of reliable manufacturing processes and supply chains that can produce high-quality quantum products at scale. Quantum products must be highly performant and reliable to meet the demands of commercial applications. This requires extensive testing and optimization to ensure that the product meets or exceeds the desired specifications.

In addition, quantum products must comply with relevant industry standards and regulations to ensure safety, interoperability, and compatibility with existing infrastructure. This requires close collaboration with regulatory bodies and industry organizations to develop appropriate standards and guidelines.

Photonic integration is a process that makes these goals more attainable for quantum technologies. By taking advantage of existing semiconductor manufacturing systems, quantum technologies can more scale up their production volumes more easily.

Smaller Footprints and Higher Efficiency

One of the most significant advantages of integrated photonics is its ability to miniaturize optical components and systems, making them much smaller, lighter, and more portable than traditional optical devices. This is achieved by leveraging micro- and nano-scale fabrication techniques to create optical components on a chip, which can then be integrated with other electronic and optical components to create a fully functional device.

The miniaturization of optical components and systems is essential for the development of practical quantum technologies, which require compact and portable devices that can be easily integrated into existing systems. For example, compact and portable quantum sensors can be used for medical imaging, geological exploration, and industrial process monitoring. Miniaturized quantum communication devices can be used to secure communication networks and enable secure communication between devices.

Integrated photonics also allows for the creation of complex optical circuits that can be easily integrated with other electronic components, to create fully integrated opto-electronic quantum systems. This is essential for the development of practical quantum computers, which require the integration of a large number of qubits (quantum bits) with control and readout electronics.

Economics of Scale

Wafer scale photonics manufacturing demands a higher upfront investment, but the resulting high-volume production line drives down the cost per device. This economy-of-scale principle is the same one behind electronics manufacturing, and the same must be applied to photonics. The more optical components we can integrate into a single chip, the more can the price of each component decrease. The more optical System-on-Chip (SoC) devices can go into a single wafer, the more can the price of each SoC decrease.

Researchers at the Technical University of Eindhoven and the JePPIX consortium have done some modelling to show how this economy of scale principle would apply to photonics. If production volumes can increase from a few thousands of chips per year to a few millions, the price per optical chip can decrease from thousands of Euros to mere tens of Euros. This must be the goal for the quantum photonics industry.

Figure 2: Modelling of photonic integrated chip (PIC) cost as a function of aggregate number of PICs produced per year. Exponential increases in production lead to an exponential decrease in cost. Source: Model and graph provided by Prof. Meint Smit, TU Eindhoven.

By integrating all optical components on a single chip, we also shift the complexity from the assembly process to the much more efficient and scalable semiconductor wafer process. Assembling and packaging a device by interconnecting multiple photonic chips increases assembly complexity and costs. On the other hand, combining and aligning optical components on a wafer at a high volume is much easier, which drives down the device’s cost.

Takeaways

Overall, bringing quantum products to market requires a multi-disciplinary approach that involves collaboration between scientists, engineers, designers, business professionals, and regulatory bodies to develop and commercialize a high-quality product that meets the needs of its target audience. Integrated photonics offers significant advantages in miniaturization and scale-up potential, which are essential in taking quantum technologies from the lab to the market.

Tags: Economy-of-scale, EFFECT Photonics, Integrated Photonics, miniaturization, Photonics, Photons, Quantum, Quantum products, Qubits, RSA encryption, Wafer Scale Photonics

Insights

April 26, 2023

The Future of Coherent Transceivers in the Access

The demand for data and other digital services is rising exponentially. From 2010 to 2020,…

The demand for data and other digital services is rising exponentially. From 2010 to 2020, Internet users worldwide doubled, and global internet traffic increased 12-fold. From 2020 to 2026, internet traffic will likely increase 5-fold. To meet this demand, datacom and telecom operators need constantly upgrade their transport networks.

The major obstacles in this upgrade path remain the power consumption, thermal management, and affordability of transceivers. Over the last two decades, power ratings for pluggable modules have increased as we moved from direct detection to more power-hungry coherent transmission: from 2W for SFP modules to 3.5 W for QSFP modules and now to 14W for QSSFP-DD and 21.1W for OSFP form factors. This power consumption increase seems incompatible with the power constraints of the network edge.

This article will review trends in data rate, power consumption, and footprint for transceivers in the network edge that aim to address these challenges.

Downscaling Data Rates for the Access

Given the success of 400ZR pluggable coherent solutions in the market, discussions in the telecom sector about a future beyond 400G pluggables have often focused on 800G solutions and 800ZR. However, there is also increasing excitement about “downscaling” to 100G coherent products for applications in the network edge.

In the coming years, 100G coherent uplinks will become increasingly widespread in deployments and applications throughout the network edge. Some mobile access networks use cases must upgrade their existing 10G DWDM link aggregation into a single coherent 100G DWDM uplink. Meanwhile, cable networks and business services are upgrading their customer links from 1Gbps to 10Gbps, and this migration will be the significant factor that will increase the demand for coherent 100G uplinks. For carriers who provide converged cable/mobile access, these upgrades to 100G uplinks will enable opportunities to overlay more business services and mobile traffic into their existing cable networks.

You can read more about these developments in our previous article, When Will the Network Edge Go Coherent?

Moving Towards Low Power

Data centers and 5G networks might be hot commodities, but the infrastructure that enables them runs even hotter. Electronic equipment generates plenty of heat; the more heat energy an electronic device dissipates, the more money and energy must be spent to cool it down. These power efficiency issues do not just affect the environment but also the bottom lines of communications companies.

As shown in the table below, the growth of data centers and wireless networks will continue to drive power consumption upwards.

Figure : Comparison of estimated ICT electric power consumption in 2020 and 2030, divided by different ICT sectors. Source: Anders Andrae (Huawei), 2020.

These power constraints are even more pressing in the access network sector. Unlike data centers and the network core, access network equipment lives in uncontrolled environments with limited cooling capabilities. Therefore, every extra watt of pluggable power consumption will impact how vendors and operators design their cabinets and equipment.

These struggles are a major reason why QSFP28 form factor solutions are becoming increasingly attractive in the 100ZR domain. Their power consumption (up to 6 watts) is lower than that of QSFP-DD form factors (up to 14 Watts), which allows them to be stacked more densely in access network equipment rooms. Besides, QSFP28 modules are compatible with existing access network equipment, which often features QSFP28 slots.

Aside from the move to QSFP28 form factors for 100G coherent, EFFECT Photonics also believes in two other ways to reduce power consumption.

Increased Integration: The interconnections among smaller, highly-integrated optical components consume less power than those among more discrete components. We will discuss this further in the next section.
Co-Design: As we explained in a previous article about fit-for-platform DSPs, a transceiver optical engine designed on the indium phosphide platform could be designed to run at a voltage compatible with the DSP’s signal output. This way, the optimized DSP could drive the PIC directly without needing a separate analog driver, doing away with a significant power conversion overhead

Can We Still Move Towards Smaller Footprints?

Moving toward smaller pluggable footprints should not necessarily be a goal, but as we mentioned in the previous section, it is a means toward the goal of lower power consumption. Decreasing the size of optical components and their interconnections means that the light inside the chip will travel a smaller distance and accumulate fewer optical losses.

Let’s look at an example of lasers. In the last decade, technological progress in tunable laser packaging and integration has matched the need for smaller footprints. In 2011, tunable lasers followed the multi-source agreement (MSA) for integrable tunable laser assemblies (ITLAs). The ITLA package measured around 30.5 mm in width and 74 mm in length. By 2015, tunable lasers were sold in the more compact Micro-ITLA form factor, which cut the original ITLA package size in half. And in 2019, laser developers (see examples here and here) announced a new Nano-ITLA form factor that reduced the size by almost half again.

Evolution of tunable laser form factors for coherent optics SM — Evolution of tunable laser form factors for coherent optics (2011-2021). Figure inspired from a picture in Laser Focus World.

Reducing the footprint of tunable lasers in the future will need even greater integration of their parts. For example, every tunable laser needs a wavelength locker component that can stabilize the laser’s output regardless of environmental conditions such as temperature. Integrating the wavelength locker component on the laser chip instead of attaching it externally would help reduce the laser package’s footprint and power consumption.

Another potential future to reduce the size of tunable laser packages is related to the control electronics. The current ITLA standards include the complete control electronics on the laser package, including power conversion and temperature control. However, if the transceiver’s main board handles some of these electronic functions instead of the laser package, the size of the laser package can be reduced.

This approach means the reduced laser package would only have full functionality if connected to the main transceiver board. However, some transceiver developers will appreciate the laser package reduction and the extra freedom to provide their own laser control electronics.

Takeaways

The ever-increasing bandwidth demands in access networks force coherent pluggables to face the complex problem of maintaining a good enough performance while moving to lower cost and power consumption.

The move towards 100G coherent solutions in QSFP28 form factors will play a major role in meeting the power requirements of the access network sector. Further gains can be achieved with greater integration of optical components and co-designing the optics and electronic engines of the transceiver to reduce inefficiencies. Further gains in footprint for transceivers can also be obtained by eliminating redundant laser control functions in both the laser package and the main transceiver board.

Tags: 100G Coherent Products, 400ZR Pluggable Coherent Solutions, 5G Networks, 800G Solutions, 800ZR, Affordability, Coherent Transceivers, datacom, Direct Detection, EFFECT Photonics, Internet Traffic, network edge, OSFP Form Factors, Photonics, Pluggable Modules, power consumption, Power Efficiency, QSFP Modules, QSSFP-DD, Telecom Operators, Thermal Management

Insights

April 19, 2023

One Watt Matters

Data centers and 5G networks might be hot commodities, but the infrastructure that enables them…

Data centers and 5G networks might be hot commodities, but the infrastructure that enables them runs even hotter. Electronic equipment generates plenty of heat; the more heat energy an electronic device dissipates, the more money and energy must be spent to cool it down.

The Uptime Institute estimates that the average power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio for data centers in 2022 is 1.55. This implies that for every 1 kWh used to power data center equipment, an extra 0.55 kWh—about 35% of total power consumption—is needed to power auxiliary equipment like lighting and, more importantly, cooling. While the advent of centralized hyperscale data centers will improve energy efficiency in the coming decade, that trend is offset by the construction of many smaller local data centers on the network edge to address the exponential growth of 5G services such as the Internet of Things (IoT).

These opposing trends are one of the reasons why the Uptime Institute has only observed a marginal improvement of 10% in the average data center PUE since 2014 (which was 1.7 back then). Such a slow improvement in average data center power efficiency cannot compensate for the fast growth of new edge data centers.

For all the bad reputation data centers receive for their energy consumption, though, wireless transmission generates even more heat than wired links. While 5G standards are more energy-efficient per bit than 4G, Huawei expects that the maximum power consumption of one of their 5G base stations will be 68% higher than their 4G stations. To make things worse, the use of higher frequency spectrum bands and new IoT use cases require the deployment of more base stations too.

Prof. Earl McCune from TU Delft estimates that nine out of ten watts of electrical power in 5G systems turn into heat. This Huawei study also predicts that the energy consumption of wireless access networks will increase even more quickly than data centers in the next ten years—more than quadrupling between 2020 and 2030.

Graph-estimated-electric-power — Figure 1 : Comparison of estimated ICT electric power consumption in 2020 and 2030, divided by different ICT sectors. Source: Anders Andrae (Huawei), 2020..

These power efficiency issues do not just affect the environment but also the bottom lines of communications companies. In such a scenario, saving even one watt of power per pluggable transceiver could quickly multiply and scale up into a massive improvement on the sustainability and profitability of telecom and datacom providers.

How One Watt of Savings Scales Up

Let’s discuss an example to show how a seemingly small improvement of one Watt in pluggable transceiver power consumption can quickly scale up into major energy savings.

A 2020 paper from Microsoft Research estimates that for a metropolitan region of 10 data centers with 16 fiber pairs each and 100-GHz DWDM per fiber, the regional interconnect network needs to host 12,800 transceivers. This number of transceivers could increase by a third in the coming years since the 400ZR transceiver ecosystem supports a denser 75 GHz DWDM grid, so this number of transceivers would increase to 17,000. Therefore, saving a watt of power in each transceiver would lead to a total of 17 kW in savings.

Figure-1watt-saving — Figure : Total power savings that can be obtained in a metro network of ten interconnected data centers if 400ZR transceivers save just one Watt of power each, as well as the equivalent carbon emissions. Carbon emissions were calculated with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) online calculator.

The power savings don’t end there, however. The transceiver is powered by the server, which is then powered by its power supply and, ultimately, the national electricity grid. On average, 2.5 Watts must be supplied from the national grid for every watt of power the transceiver uses. When applying that 2.5 factor, the 17 kW in savings we discussed earlier are, in reality, 42.5 kW. In a year of power consumption, this rate adds up to a total of 372 MWh in power consumption savings. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), these amounts of power savings in a single metro data center network are equivalent to 264 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions are equivalent to consuming 610 barrels of oil and could power up to 33 American homes for a year.

Saving Power through Integration and Co-Design

Before 2020, Apple made its computer processors with discrete components. In other words, electronic components were manufactured on separate chips, and then these chips were assembled into a single package. However, the interconnections between the chips produced losses and incompatibilities that made their devices less energy efficient. After 2020, starting with Apple’s M1 processor, they fully integrate all components on a single chip, avoiding losses and incompatibilities. As shown in the table below, this electronic system-on-chip (SoC) consumes a third of the power compared to the processors with discrete components used in their previous generations of computers.

𝗠𝗮𝗰 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗶 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹	𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
𝗠𝗮𝗰 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗶 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹	𝗜𝗱𝗹𝗲	𝗠𝗮𝘅
2023, M2	7	5
2020, M1	7	39
2018, Core i7	20	122
2014, Core i5	6	85
2010, Core 2 Duo	10	85
2006, Core Solo or Duo	23	110
2005, PowerPC G4	32	85
Table 1: Comparing the power consumption of a Mac Mini with an M1 and M2 SoC chips to previous generations of Mac Minis. [Source: Apple’s website]

The photonics industry would benefit from a similar goal: implementing a photonic system-on-chip. Integrating all the optical components (lasers, detectors, modulators, etc.) on a single chip can minimize the losses and make devices such as optical transceivers more efficient. This approach doesn’t just optimize the efficiency of the devices themselves but also of the resource-hungry chip manufacturing process. For example, a system-on-chip approach enables earlier optical testing on the semiconductor wafer and dies. By testing the dies and wafers directly before packaging, manufacturers need only discard the bad dies rather than the whole package, which saves valuable energy and materials. You can read our previous article on the subject to know more about the energy efficiency benefits of system-on-chip integration.

Another way of improving power consumption in photonic devices is co-designing their optical and electronic systems. A co-design approach helps identify in greater detail the trade-offs between various parameters in the optics and electronics, optimizing their fit with each other and ultimately improving the overall power efficiency of the device. In the case of coherent optical transceivers, an electronic digital signal processor specifically optimized to drive an indium-phosphide optical engine directly could lead to power savings.

When Sustainability is Profitable

System-on-chip (SoC) approaches might reduce not only the footprint and energy consumption of photonic devices but also their cost. The economics of scale principles that rule the electronic semiconductor industry can also reduce the cost of photonic systems-on-chip. After all, SoCs minimize the footprint of photonic devices, allowing photonics developers to fit more of them within a single wafer, which decreases the price of each photonic system. As the graphic below shows, the more chips and wafers are produced, the lower the cost per chip becomes.

Graph-cost-per-PIC — Figure 2: Modelling of photonic integrated chip (PIC) cost as a function of aggregate number of PICs produced per year. Exponential increases in production lead to an exponential decrease in cost. Source: Model and graph provided by Prof. Meint Smit, TU Eindhoven.

Integrating all optical components—including the laser—on a single chip shifts the complexity from the expensive assembly and packaging process to the more affordable and scalable semiconductor wafer process. For example, it’s much easier to combine optical components on a wafer at a high volume than to align components from different chips together in the assembly process. This shift to wafer processes also helps drive down the cost of the device.

Takeaways

With data and energy demands rising yearly, telecom and datacom providers are constantly finding ways to reduce their power and cost per transmitted bit. As we showed earlier in this article, even one watt of power saved in an optical transceiver can snowball into major savings that providers and the environment can profit from. These improvements in the power consumption of optical transceivers can be achieved by deepening the integration of optical components and co-designing them with electronics. Highly compact and integrated optical systems can also be manufactured at greater scale and efficiency, reducing their financial and environmental costs. These details help paint a bigger picture for providers: sustainability now goes hand-in-hand with profitability.

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Tags: 5G, data centers, EFFECT Photonics, efficiency, energy consumption, Photonics, Sustainability, Transceivers

Insights

April 12, 2023

When will the Network Edge go Coherent?

Article first published 27 July 2022, updated 12 April 2023. Network carriers want to provide…

Article first published 27 July 2022, updated 12 April 2023.

Network carriers want to provide communications solutions in all areas: mobile access, cable networks, and fixed access to business customers. They want to provide this extra capacity and innovative and personalized connectivity and entertainment services to their customers.

Deploying only legacy direct detect technologies will not be enough to cover these growing bandwidth and service demands of mobile, cable, and business access networks with the required reach. In several cases, networks must deploy more 100G coherent dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology to transmit more information over long distances. Several applications in the optical network edge could benefit from upgrading from 10G DWDM or 100G grey aggregation uplinks to 100G DWDM optics:

Mobile Mid-haul benefits from seamlessly upgrading existing uplinks from 10G to 100G DWDM.
Mobile Backhaul benefits from upgrading their links to 100G IPoDWDM.
Cable Access links could upgrade the uplinks of existing termination devices such as optical line terminals (OLTs) and Converged Cable Access Platforms (CCAPs) from 10G to 100G DWDM.
Business Services could scale enterprise bandwidth beyond single-channel 100G grey links.

However, network providers have often stuck to their 10G DWDM or 100G grey links because the existing 100G DWDM solutions could not check all the required boxes. “Scaled-down” coherent 400ZR solutions had the required reach and tunability but were too expensive and power-hungry for many access network applications. Besides, ports in small to medium IP routers used in most edge deployments often do not support the QSFP-DD form factor commonly used in 400ZR modules but the QSFP28 form factor.

Fortunately, the rise of 100ZR solutions in the QSFP28 form factor is changing the landscape for access networks. “The access market needs a simple, pluggable, low-cost upgrade to the 10G DWDM optics that it has been using for years. 100ZR is that upgrade,” said Scott Wilkinson, Lead Analyst for Optical Components at market research firm Cignal AI. “As access networks migrate from 1G solutions to 10G solutions, 100ZR will be a critical enabling technology.”

In this article, we will discuss how the recent advances in 100ZR solutions will enable the evolution of different segments of the network edge: mobile midhaul and backhaul, business services, and cable.

How Coherent 100G Can Move into Mobile X-haul

The upgrade from 4G to 5G has shifted the radio access network (RAN) from a two-level structure with backhaul and fronthaul in 4G to a three-level structure with back-, mid-, and fronthaul:

Fronthaul is the segment between the active antenna unit (AAU) and the distributed unit (DU)
Midhaul is the segment from DU to the centralized unit (CU)
Backhaul is the segment from CU to the core network.

Figure 1: Simplified diagram that shows and compares the building blocks of 4G (left) and 5G (right) access networks and the links between these blocks.

The initial rollout of 5G has already happened in most developed countries, with many operators upgrading their 1G SFPs transceiver to 10G SFP+ devices. Some of these 10G solutions had DWDM technology; many were single-channel grey transceivers. However, mobile networks must move to the next phase of 5G deployments, which requires installing and aggregating more and smaller base stations to exponentially increase the number of devices connected to the network.

These mature phases of 5G deployment will require operators to continue scaling fiber capacity cost-effectively with more widespread 10G DWDM SFP+ solutions and 25G SFP28 transceivers. These upgrades will put greater pressure on the aggregation segments of mobile backhaul and midhaul. These network segments commonly used link aggregation of multiple 10G DWDM links into a higher bandwidth group (such as 4x10G). However, this link aggregation requires splitting up larger traffic streams and can be complex to integrate across an access ring. A single 100G uplink would reduce the need for such link aggregation and simplify the network setup and operations. If you want to know more about the potential market and reach of this link aggregation upgrade, we recommend reading the recent Cignal AI report on 100ZR technologies.

Cable Migration to 10G PON Will Drive the Use of Coherent 100G Uplinks

According to Cignal AI’s 100ZR report, the biggest driver of 100ZR use will come from multiplexing fixed access network links upgrading from 1G to 10G. This trend will be reflected in cable networks’ long-awaited migration from Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON) to 10G PON. This evolution is primarily guided by the new DOCSIS 4.0 standard, which promises 10Gbps download speeds for customers and will require several hardware upgrades in cable networks.

To multiplex these new larger 10Gbps customer links, cable providers and network operators need to upgrade their optical line terminals (OLTs) and Converged Cable Access Platforms (CCAPs) from 10G to 100G DWDM uplinks. Many of these new optical hubs will support up to 40 or 80 optical distribution networks (ODNs), too, so the previous approach of aggregating multiple 10G DWDM uplinks will not be enough to handle this increased capacity and higher number of channels.

Anticipating such needs, the non-profit R&D organization CableLabs has recently pushed to develop a 100G Coherent PON (C-PON) standard. Their proposal offers 100 Gbps per wavelength at a maximum reach of 80 km and up to a 1:512 split ratio. CableLabs anticipates C-PON and its 100G capabilities will play a significant role not just in cable optical network aggregation but in other use cases such as mobile x-haul, fiber-to-the-building (FTTB), long-reach rural scenarios, and distributed access networks.

Towards 100G Coherent and QSFP28 in Business Services

Almost every organization uses the cloud in some capacity, whether for development and test resources or software-as-a-service applications. While the cost and flexibility of the cloud are compelling, its use requires fast, high-bandwidth wide-area connectivity to make cloud-based applications work as they should.

Similarly to cable networks, these needs will require enterprises to upgrade their existing 1G Ethernet private lines to 10G Ethernet, which will also drive a greater need for 100G coherent uplinks. Cable providers and operators will also want to take advantage of their upgraded 10G PON networks and expand the reach and capacity of their business services.

The business and enterprise services sector was the earliest adopter of 100G coherent uplinks, deploying “scaled-down” 400ZR transceivers in the QSFP-DD form factor since they were the solution available at the time. However, these QSFP-DD slots also support QSFP28 form factors, so the rise of QSFP 100ZR solutions will provide these enterprise applications with a more attractive upgrade with lower cost and power consumption. These QSFP28 solutions had struggled to become more widespread before because they required the development of new, low-power digital signal processors (DSPs), but DSP developers and vendors are keenly jumping on board the 100ZR train and have announced their development projects: Acacia, Coherent/ADVA, Marvell/InnoLight, and Marvell/OE Solutions. This is also why EFFECT Photonics has announced its plans to co-develop a 100G DSP with Credo Semiconductor that best fits 100ZR solutions in the QSFP28 form factor.

Figure : Comparison between QSFP-DD and QSFP-28 form factors for 100G applications. — Figure 2 : Comparison between QSFP-DD and QSFP-28 form factors for 100G applications.

Takeaways

In the coming years, 100G coherent uplinks will become increasingly widespread in deployments and applications throughout the network edge. Some mobile access networks use cases must upgrade their existing 10G DWDM link aggregation into a single coherent 100G DWDM uplink. Meanwhile, cable networks and business services are upgrading their customer links from 1Gbps to 10Gbps, and this migration will be the major factor that will increase the demand for coherent 100G uplinks. For carriers who provide converged cable/mobile access, these upgrades to 100G uplinks will enable opportunities to overlay more business services and mobile traffic into their existing cable networks.

As the QSFP28 100ZR ecosystem expands, production will scale up, and these solutions will become more widespread and affordable, opening up even more use cases in access networks.

Tags: 5G, access, aggregation, backhaul, capacity, DWDM, fronthaul, Integrated Photonics, LightCounting, metro, midhaul, mobile, mobile access, network, optical networking, optical technology, photonic integrated chip, photonic integration, Photonics, PIC, PON, programmable photonic system-on-chip, solutions, technology

Insights

March 22, 2023

Transceivers in the Age of AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) will have a significant role in making optical networks more scalable, affordable,…

Artificial intelligence (AI) will have a significant role in making optical networks more scalable, affordable, and sustainable. It can gather information from devices across the optical network to identify patterns and make decisions independently without human input. By synergizing with other technologies, such as network function virtualization (NFV), AI can become a centralized management and orchestration network layer. Such a setup can fully automate network provisioning, diagnostics, and management, as shown in the diagram below.

Figure 1: Example of a carrier network with different applications (mobile, home, office) automated via NFV control and AI management.

However, artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms are data-hungry. To work optimally, they need information from all network layers and ever-faster data centers to process it quickly. Pluggable optical transceivers thus need to become smarter, relaying more information back to the AI central unit, and faster, enabling increased AI processing.

Faster Transceivers for the Age of AI

Optical transceivers are crucial in developing better AI systems by facilitating the rapid, reliable data transmission these systems need to do their jobs. High-speed, high-bandwidth connections are essential to interconnect data centers and supercomputers that host AI systems and allow them to analyze a massive volume of data.

In addition, optical transceivers are essential for facilitating the development of artificial intelligence-based edge computing, which entails relocating compute resources to the network’s periphery. This is essential for facilitating the quick processing of data from Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices like sensors and cameras, which helps minimize latency and increase reaction times.

400 Gbps links are becoming the standard across data center interconnects, but providers are already considering the next steps. LightCounting forecasts significant growth in the shipments of dense-wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) ports with data rates of 600G, 800G, and beyond in the next five years. We discuss these solutions in greater detail in our article about the roadmap to 800G and beyond.

Figure 2: Shipments of high-speed DWDM ports by data rate (historical data and forecast). Source: LightCounting Optical Communications Market Forecast, April 2022.

Coherent Modules Need to Provide More Telemetry Data

Mobile networks now and in the future will consist of a massive number of devices, software applications, and technologies. Self-managed, zero-touch automated networks will be required to handle all these new devices and use cases. Realizing this full network automation requires two vital components.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms for comprehensive network automation: For instance, AI in network management can drastically cut the energy usage of future telecom networks.
Sensor and control data flow across all network model layers, including the physical layer: As networks grow in size and complexity, the management and orchestration (MANO) software needs more degrees of freedom and dials to turn.

These goals require smart optical equipment and components that provide comprehensive telemetry data about their status and the fiber they are connected to. The AI-controlled centralized management and orchestration layer can then use this data for remote management and diagnostics. We discuss this topic further in our previous article on remote provisioning, diagnostics, and management.

For example, a smart optical transceiver that fits this centralized AI-management model should relay data to the AI controller about fiber conditions. Such monitoring is not just limited to finding major faults or cuts in the fiber but also smaller degradations or delays in the fiber that stem from age, increased stress in the link due to increased traffic, and nonlinear optical effects. A transceiver that could relay all this data allows the AI controller to make better decisions about how to route traffic through the network.

A Smart Transceiver to Rule All Network Links

After relaying data to the AI management system, a smart pluggable transceiver must also switch parameters to adapt to different use cases and instructions given by the controller.

Let’s look at an example of forward error correction (FEC). FEC makes the coherent link much more tolerant to noise than a direct detect system and enables much longer reach and higher capacity. In other words, FEC algorithms allow the DSP to enhance the link performance without changing the hardware. This enhancement is analogous to imaging cameras: image processing algorithms allow the lenses inside your phone camera to produce a higher-quality image.

Figure 1 Simplified diagram of a network link with Forward Error Correction (FEC). — Figure 3: Simplified diagram of a network link with forward error correction (FEC). The FEC encoder adds redundant bits (overhead) to the transmitted data stream. The receiver can use this overhead to check for errors without asking the transmitter to resend the data.

A smart transceiver and DSP could switch among different FEC algorithms to adapt to network performance and use cases. Let’s look at the case of upgrading a long metro link of 650km running at 100 Gbps with open FEC. The operator needs to increase that link capacity to 400 Gbps, but open FEC could struggle to provide the necessary link performance. However, if the transceiver can be remotely reconfigured to use a proprietary FEC standard, the transceiver will be able to handle this upgraded link.

Reconfigurable transceivers can also be beneficial to auto-configure links to deal with specific network conditions, especially in brownfield links. Let’s return to the fiber monitoring subject we discussed in the previous section. A transceiver can change its modulation scheme or lower the power of its semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) if telemetry data indicates a good quality fiber. Conversely, if the fiber quality is poor, the transceiver can transmit with a more limited modulation scheme or higher power to reduce bit errors. If the smart pluggable detects that the fiber length is relatively short, the laser transmitter power or the DSP power consumption could be scaled down to save energy.

Takeaways

Optical networks will need artificial intelligence and machine learning to scale more efficiently and affordably to handle the increased traffic and connected devices. Conversely, AI systems will also need faster pluggables than before to acquire data and make decisions more quickly. Pluggables that fit this new AI era must be fast, smart, and adapt to multiple use cases and conditions. They will need to scale up to speeds beyond 400G and relay monitoring data back to the AI management layer in the central office. The AI management layer can then program transceiver interfaces from this telemetry data to change parameters and optimize the network.

Tags: 800G, 800G and beyond, adaptation, affordable, AI, artificial intelligence, automation, CloudComputing, data, DataCenter, EFFECT Photonics, FEC, fiber quality, innovation, integration, laser arrays, machine learning, network conditions, network optimization, Networking, optical transceivers, photonic integration, Photonics, physical layer, programmable interface, scalable, sensor data flow, technology, Telecommunications, telemetry data, terabyte, upgrade, virtualization

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March 15, 2023

Coherent Optics In Space

When it started, the space race was a competition between two superpowers, but now there…

When it started, the space race was a competition between two superpowers, but now there are 90 countries with missions in space.

The prices of space travel have gone down, making it possible for more than just governments to send rockets and satellites into space. Several private companies are now investing in space programs, looking for everything from scientific advances to business opportunities. Some reports estimate more than 10,000 companies in the space industry and around 5,000 investors.

According to The Space Foundation’s 2022 report, the space economy was worth $469 billion in 2021. The report says more spacecraft were launched in the first six months of 2021 than in the first 52 years of space exploration (1957-2009). This growing industry has thus a growing need for technology products across many disciplines, including telecommunications. The space sector will need lighter, more affordable telecommunication systems that also provide increased bandwidth.

This is why EFFECT Photonics sees future opportunities for coherent technology in the space industry. By translating the coherent transmission from fiber communication systems on the ground to free-space optical systems, the space sector can benefit from solutions with more bandwidth capacity and less power consumption than traditional point-to-point microwave links.

It’s all About SWaP

One of the major concerns of the space industry is the cost of sending anything into space. Even during the days of NASA’s Space Shuttle program (which featured a reusable shuttle unit), sending a kilogram into space cost tens of thousands of dollars. Over time, more rocket stages have become reusable due to the efforts of companies like SpaceX, reducing these costs to just a few thousand. The figure below shows how the cost of space flight has decreased significantly in the last two decades.

Figure 1: The cost of a kilogram of payload into space since 2000. Source: Visual Capitalist (data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies)

Even though space travel is more affordable than ever, size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements are still vital in the space industry. After all, shaving off weight or size in the spacecraft means a less expensive launch or perhaps room for more scientific instruments. Meanwhile, less power consumption means less drain on the spacecraft’s energy sources.

Using Optics and Photonics to Minimize SWaP Requirements

Currently, most space missions use bulkier radio frequency communications to send data to and from spacecraft. While radio waves have a proven track record of success in space missions, generating and collecting more mission data requires enhanced communications capabilities. Besides, radiofrequency equipment can often generate a lot of heat, requiring more energy to cool the system.

Decreasing SWaP requirements can be achieved with more photonics and miniaturization. Transmitting data with light will usually dissipate less than heat than transmission with electrical signals and radio waves. These leads to smaller, lighter communication systems that require less power to run.

These SWaP advantages come alongside the increased transmission speeds. After all, coherent optical communications can increase link capacities to spacecraft and satellites by 10 to 100 times that of radio frequency systems.

Leveraging Electronics Ecosystems for Space Certification and Standardization

While integrated photonics can boost space communications by lowering the payload, it must overcome the obstacles of a harsh space environment, which include radiation hardness, an extreme operational temperature range, and vacuum conditions.

*Mission Type*	*Temperature Range*
Pressurized Module	+18.3 ºC to 26.7 °C
Low-Earth Orbit (LEO)	-65 ºC to +125 °C
Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit (GEO)	-196 ºC to +128 °C
Trans-Atmospheric Vehicle	-200 ºC to +260 ºC
Lunar Surface	-171 ºC to +111 ºC
Martian Surface	-143 ºC to +27 ºC

Table 1. Temperature Extremes by Mission Type. Source: NASA

The values in Table 1 show the unmanaged environmental temperatures in different space environments. In a temperature-managed area, these would decrease significantly for electronics and optics systems, perhaps by as much as half. Despite this management, the equipment would still need to deal with some extreme temperature values.

Fortunately, a substantial body of knowledge exists to make integrated photonics compatible with space environments. After all, photonic integrated circuits (PICs) use similar materials to their electronic counterparts, which have already been space qualified in many implementations.

Much research has gone into overcoming the challenges of packaging PICs with electronics and optical fibers for these space environments, which must include hermetic seals and avoid epoxies. Commercial solutions, such as those offered by PHIX Photonics Assembly, Technobis IPS, and the PIXAPP Photonic Packaging Pilot Line, are now available.

Takeaways

Whenever you want to send data from point A to B, photonics is usually the most efficient way of doing it, be it over fiber or free space.

Offering optical communication systems in a small integrated package that can resist the required environmental conditions will significantly benefit the space sector and its need to minimize SWaP requirements. These optical systems can increase their transmission capacity with the coherent optical transmission used in fiber optics. Furthermore, by leveraging the assembly and packaging structure of electronics for the space sector, photonics can also provide the systems with the ruggedness required to live in space.

Tags: certification, coherent, electronics, existing, fast, growing, heat dissipation, miniaturization, Optical Communication, Photonics, power consumption, size, space, space sector, speed, SWAP, temperature, weight

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