PIC Archives - EFFECT Photonics

02 October 2023 - 04 October 2023

9:30 am - 4:30 pm

EFFECT Photonics #547

Discover Where Light Meets Digital at ECOC2023

Join us from October 2nd-4th, 2023 at ECOC Exhibition in Sec, Glasgow, Scotland, the largest optical communications exhibition in Europe at stand #547.

Insights

August 23, 2023

Manufacturing a Coherent Transceiver

Coherent transmission has become a fundamental component of optical networks to address situations where direct…

Coherent transmission has become a fundamental component of optical networks to address situations where direct detect technology cannot provide the required capacity and reach.

While direct detect transmission only uses the amplitude of the light signal, coherent optical transmission manipulates three different light properties: amplitude, phase, and polarization. These additional degrees of modulation allow for faster optical signals without compromising on transmission distance. Furthermore, coherent technology enables capacity upgrades without replacing the expensive physical fiber infrastructure in the ground.

Given the importance of coherent transmission, we will explain some key aspects of manufacturing and testing these devices in this article. In the previous article, we described critical aspects of the transceiver design process.

Into the Global Supply Chain

Almost every modern product results from global supply chains, with components and parts manufactured in facilities worldwide. A pluggable coherent transceiver is not an exception. Some transceiver developers will have fabrication facilities in-house, while others (like EFFECT Photonics) are fabless and outsource their manufacturing. We have discussed the pros and cons of these approaches in a previous article.

Writing a faithful, nuanced summary of all the manufacturing processes involved is beyond the scope of this article. Still, we will mention in very broad terms some of the key processes going on.

Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Procurement: Many components in the transceiver are designed in-house and custom-ordered and manufactured, but other components are sourced off-the-shelf from various suppliers and manufacturers. This includes devices such as RF drivers, amplifiers, or even optical sub-assemblies.
Integrated Circuit Fabrication: The electronic digital signal processor, optical engine, and laser chips are manufactured through semiconductor foundry processes. In the case of EFFECT Photonics, the laser and optical engine can be fabricated on the same chip. You can read some of our previous to know more about what goes into the DSP and the PIC manufacturing processes.
Manufacturing Sub-Assemblies: When the chips have been manufactured and tested, the manufacturing of the different transceiver sub-assemblies (chiefly the transmitter and receiver) can proceed. Again, vertically-integrated transceiver developers can manufacture these in-house, but most transceiver makers outsource this, especially if they want large-scale production. This includes manufacturing printed circuit boards (PCB) that integrate and interconnect the electronic and optical components. Careful alignment and bonding of optical components, such as lasers and photodetectors, are critical to achieve optimum performance.
Transceiver Housing: The transceiver subassemblies will be housed in a metal casing, usually made from an aluminum alloy. The design and manufacturing of these housings must consider power distribution and thermal management.

The collaboration in this global supply chain ensures the availability of specialized expertise and resources, leading to efficient and cost-effective production.

Figure 1: Key locations of EFFECT Photonics’ global supply chain. This includes our offices but also some locations where manufacturing is outsourced. We don’t mention the locations of our off-the-shelf component suppliers.

Testing the Transceiver

The avid reader may have noticed that we did not mention one of the most critical aspects of manufacturing in the previous section: testing. After all, what you do not test, you cannot manufacture reliably.

Testing and quality assurance processes must occur throughout all the manufacturing processes to verify its performance and compliance with industry standards. Semiconductor chips and PCBs must be tested before they are placed in sub-assemblies. The completed sub-assemblies must then be tested for optical and electrical performance. Once the transceiver module is completed, it must undergo several reliability and compatibility tests. Let’s discuss some of these testing processes.

Chip Testing: Testing should happen not only on the transceiver sub-assemblies or the final package but also after chip fabrication, such as measuring after wafer processing or cutting the wafer into smaller dies. The earlier faults can be found in the testing process, the greater the impact on the use of materials and the energy used to process defective chips.

Figure-Sustainability-set — Figure 2: Package level (top row) vs. die level (bottom row) testing. Manufacturers can find faults earlier by testing at the die level, which avoids wasting packaging materials.

Calibration and Performance Testing: This involves assessing and calibrating the key performance parameters of the transceiver: output power, extinction ratio, bit error rate, receiver sensitivity, peak wavelength and spectrum, and a few others. Various modulation formats and data rates should be tested to ensure reliable performance under different operating conditions, and performance at different temperatures is also measured (more on that later). These tests will determine whether the device complies with industry standards.
Environmental and Reliability Testing: The transceiver should undergo environmental and reliability testing to assess its performance under different operating conditions. These tests ensure that the transceiver can withstand real-world deployment scenarios and maintain reliable operation over its intended lifespan. As shown in Table 1, this includes temperature cycling, humidity testing, vibration testing, and accelerated aging tests.

Mechanical Reliability & Temperature Testing
Shock & Vibration	High / Low Storage Temp	Temp Cycle
Damp Heat	Cycle Moisture Resistance	Hot Pluggable
Mating Durability	Accelerated Aging	Life Expectancy Calculation

Table 1: Examples of necessary verification tests for transceivers that will operate in harsh temperatures

Compatibility Testing: The modules are inserted into switches of various third-party brands to test their interoperability. This is particularly important for a device that wants to be certified by a specific Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) group. This certification adds credibility and ensures that the transceiver can seamlessly integrate into various network environments.

Takeaways

Manufacturing pluggable coherent transceivers involves a global supply chain, enabling access to specialized expertise and resources for efficient production. Some critical processes in this manufacturing chain include procuring materials and off-the-shelf components, fabricating the integrated circuits, and manufacturing the sub-assemblies and the transceiver housing.

Testing and quality assurance are integral to reliable manufacturing. Rigorous testing occurs at various stages, including chip, calibration, performance, environmental, and compatibility testing with third-party brands. This ensures that the transceivers meet industry standards and perform optimally under various operating conditions.

Through meticulous manufacturing and rigorous testing processes, coherent transceivers remain at the forefront of advancing global connectivity.

Tags: Amplitude, and environmental testing, Calibration, Capacity upgrades, coherent 100G ZR, coherent transmission, COSA, datacom, Direct detect technology, DSP, DSP COSA, EIA, global, Global supply chain, GR-CORE, integration, ITLA, ITU, knowledge, laser, OIF, optical networks, Packaging, performance, phase, PIC, Pluggable coherent transceiver, polarization, power, Semiconductor foundry processes, SFF, standards, supply chain, Telcordia, Telecom, Testing and quality assurance, Transceiver

Insights

July 26, 2023

Designing a Coherent Transceiver

Coherent transmission has become a fundamental component of optical networks to address situations where direct…

Coherent transmission has become a fundamental component of optical networks to address situations where direct detect technology cannot provide the required capacity and reach.

Given its importance, in this article, we want to explain some key aspects of the design processes going on in transceivers.

Key Components of An Optical Transceiver

An optical transceiver has both electrical and optical subsystems, each with its specific components. Each component plays a crucial role in enabling high-speed, long-haul data transmission. Here are the primary components of a coherent optical transceiver:

Figure ICTROCA — Figure 1: Simplified diagram of the building blocks of a coherent QSFP transceiver designed at EFFECT Photonics. A particularity of our company’s implementation of the transceiver is that the tunable laser is integrated on the same optical engine chip as the other optical components.

Laser Source: The laser source generates the coherent light used for transmission. It determines many of the characteristics of the transmitted optical signal, from its wavelength and power to its noise tolerance. Read our previous article to know more about what goes inside laser design.
Optical engine: The optical engine includes the modulator and receiver components as well as passive optical components required to guide, combine or split optical signals. The modulator encodes data onto the optical signal and the receiver converts the optical signal into an electrical signal. Depending on the material used (indium phosphide or silicon), the optical engine chip might also include the tunable laser.
Digital/Analog Converters (DAC/ADC): The Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) turns digital signals from the digital processing circuitry into analog signals for modulation. The Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) does the reverse process.
Digital Signal Processor (DSP): The DSP performs key signal processing functions, including dispersion compensation, polarization demultiplexing, carrier phase recovery, equalization, and error correction. Read this article to know more about what goes inside a DSP.
Forward Error Correction (FEC) Encoder/Decoder: FEC is crucial for enhancing the reliability of data transmission by adding redundant bits that allow a receiver to check for errors without asking for retransmission of the data.
Control and Monitoring Interfaces: Transceivers feature control and monitoring interfaces for managing and optimizing their operation.
Power Management and Cooling Systems: These include heatsinks and thermoelectric coolers required to maintain the components within their specified temperature ranges and ensure reliable transceiver operation.

Key Design Processes in a Transceiver

Designing a transceiver is a process that should take an initial application concept into a functioning transceiver device that can be manufactured. It’s a complex, layered process that involves designing many individual components and subsystems separately but also predicting and simulating how all these components and subsystems will interact with each other.

Writing a faithful, nuanced summary of this design process is beyond the scope of this article, but we will mention in very broad terms some of the key processes going on.

Defining Concept and Specifications: We must first define what goes into the transceiver and the expected performance. Transceiver architects will spend time with product management to understand the customer’s requirements and their impact on design choices. Some of these requirements and designs are already standardized, some of them (like EFFECT Photonics’ optical engine) are proprietary and will require deeper thinking in-house. After these conversations, the transceiver concept becomes a concrete set of specifications that are passed on to the different teams (some in-house, others from company partners).
Optical Subsystem Design: The optical subsystem in the transceiver generates, manipulates, and receives the light signal. Optical designers develop a schematic circuit diagram that captures the function of the optical subsystem, which includes lasers, modulators, or light detectors. The designers will simulate the optical system to make sure it works, and then translate this functional design into an actual optical chip layout that can be manufactured at a semiconductor foundry.
Electronic Subsystem Design: In parallel with the optical subsystem, the electronic subsystem is also being designed. The heart of the electronic subsystem is the DSP chip. The DSP design team also comes up with a functional model of the DSP and must simulate it and translate it into a layout that can be manufactured by a semiconductor foundry. However, there’s a lot more to the electronic system than just the DSP: there are analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, amplifiers, drivers, and other electronic components required for signal conditioning. All of these components can be acquired from another vendor or designed in-house depending on the requirements and needs.
Mechanical and Thermal Design: The mechanical and thermal design of the pluggable transceiver is essential to ensure its compatibility with industry-standard form factors and enable reliable operation. Mechanical considerations include connector types, physical dimensions, and mounting mechanisms. The thermal design focuses on heat dissipation and ensures the transceiver operates within acceptable temperature limits.

The Importance of a Co-Design Philosophy

Transceiver developers often source their DSP, laser, and optical engine from different suppliers, so all these chips are designed separately. This setup reduces the time to market and simplifies the research and design processes but comes with trade-offs in performance and power consumption.

A co-design approach that features strong interactions between the different teams that design these systems can lead to a much better fit and efficiency gains. You can learn more about the potential advantages of co-designing optical and electronic subsystems in this article.

Takeaways

In summary, designing a coherent optical pluggable transceiver involves carefully considering and balancing many different systems, standards, and requirements, from optical and electrical subsystems to mechanical and thermal design and component procurement. These design processes ensure the development of a reliable, high-performance optical transceiver that meets industry standards and fulfills the specific requirements of the target application.

Tags: coherent 100G ZR, Coherent technology, coherent transmission, COSA, datacom, Digital Signal Processor (DSP), Direct detect technology, DSP, DSP COSA, EIA, Forward Error Correction (FEC) Encoder/Decoder, global, GR-CORE, integration, ITLA, ITU, knowledge, laser, Laser source, OIF, optical engine, optical networks, Optical transceiver, Optical transmission, Packaging, PIC, power, SFF, standards, supply chain, Telcordia, Telecom, Transceiver

Insights

May 31, 2023

Building a Sustainable Future with Fully Integrated PICs

Article first published 27 September 2021, updated 31st May 2023. The demand for data and…

Article first published 27 September 2021, updated 31st May 2023.

The demand for data and other digital services is rising exponentially. From 2010 to 2020, the number of Internet users worldwide doubled, and global internet traffic increased 12-fold. By 2022, internet traffic had doubled yet again. While 5G standards are more energy-efficient per bit than 4G, the total power consumption will be much higher than 4G. Huawei expects that the maximum power consumption of one of their 5G base stations will be 68% higher than their 4G stations. These issues do not just affect the environment but also the bottom lines of communications companies.

Keeping up with the increasing data demand of future networks sustainably will require operators to deploy more optical technologies, such as photonic integrated circuits (PICs), in their access and fronthaul networks.

Integration Impacts Energy Efficiency and Optical Losses

Lately, we have seen many efforts to increase further the integration on a component level across the electronics industry. For example, moving towards greater integration of components in a single chip has yielded significant efficiency benefits in electronics processors. Apple’s recent M1 and M2 processors integrate all electronic functions in a single system-on-chip (SoC) and consume significantly less power than the processors with discrete components used in their previous generations of computers.

Mac Mini Model	Power Consumption (Watts)
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 SoC chip to previous generations of Mac Minis. [Source: Apple’s website]

Photonics is also achieving greater efficiency gains by following a similar approach to integration. The more active and passive optical components (lasers, modulators, detectors, etc.) manufacturers can integrate on a single chip, the more energy they can save since they avoid coupling losses between discrete components and allow for interactive optimization.

Let’s start by discussing three different levels of device integration for an optical device like a transceiver:

Discrete build – The transceiver components are manufactured through separate processes. The components are then assembled into a single package using different types of interconnections.
Partial integration – Some components are manufactured and integrated on the same chip, but others are manufactured or sourced separately. For example, the transceiver laser can be manufactured separately on a different material and then interconnected to a chip with the other transceiver components.
Full integration – All the components are manufactured on a single chip from a single material simultaneously.

While discrete builds and partial integration have advantages in managing the production yield of the individual components, full integration leads to fewer optical losses and more efficient packaging and testing processes, making them a much better fit in terms of sustainability.

The interconnects required to couple discrete components result in electrical and optical losses that must be compensated with higher transmitter power and more energy consumption. The more interconnects between different components, the higher the losses become. Discrete builds will have the most interconnect points and highest losses. Partial integration reduces the number of interconnect points and losses compared to discrete builds. If these components are made from different optical materials, the interconnections will suffer additional losses.

On the other hand, full integration uses a single chip of the same base material. It does not require lossy interconnections between chips, minimizing optical losses and significantly reducing the energy consumption and footprint of the transceiver device.

Figure 1: Example of integrating a laser to other photonic components through different integration approaches.

More Integration Saves Scarce Resources

When it comes to energy consumption and sustainability, we shouldn’t just think about the energy the PIC consumes but also the energy and carbon footprint of fabricating the chip and assembling the transceiver. To give an example from the electronics sector, a Harvard and Facebook study estimated that for Apple, manufacturing accounts for 74% of their carbon emissions, with integrated circuit manufacturing comprising roughly 33% of Apple’s carbon output. That’s higher than the emissions from product use.

Figure 2: Apple’s carbon-emission breakdown. Manufacturing accounts for 74% of total emissions, and hardware use accounts for 19%. Carbon output from manufacturing integrated circuits (i.e., SoCs, DRAM, and NAND flash memory) is higher than that of hardware use. [Source: ]

Early Testing Avoids Wastage

Testing is another aspect of the manufacturing process that impacts sustainability. The earlier faults can be found in the testing process, the greater the impact on the use of materials and the energy used to process defective chips. Ideally, testing should happen not only on the final, packaged transceiver but in the earlier stages of PIC fabrication, such as measuring after wafer processing or cutting the wafer into smaller dies.

Figure 3: Package level (top row) vs. die level (bottom row) testing. Manufacturers can find faults earlier by testing at the die level, which avoids wasting packaging materials.

Discrete and partial integration approaches do more of their optical testing on the finalized package, after connecting all the different components together. Should just one of the components not pass the testing process, the complete packaged transceiver would need to be discarded, potentially leading to a massive waste of materials as nothing can be ”fixed” or reused at this stage of the manufacturing process.

Full integration 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.

Full Integration Drives Sustainability

While communication networks have become more energy-efficient, further technological improvements must continue decreasing the cost of energy per bit and keeping up with the exponential increase in Internet traffic. At the same time, a greater focus is being placed on the importance of sustainability and responsible manufacturing. All the photonic integration approaches we have touched on will play a role in reducing the energy consumption of future networks. However, out of all of them, only full integration is in a position to make a significant contribution to the goals of sustainability and environmentally friendly manufacturing. A fully integrated system-on-chip minimizes optical losses, transceiver energy consumption, power usage, and materials wastage while at the same time ensuring increased energy efficiency of the manufacturing, packaging, and testing process.

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Tags: ChipIntegration, Data demand, DataDemand, EFFECT Photonics, Energy consumption reduction, energy efficiency, EnergySavings, Environmental impact, Fully Integrated PICs, Green Future, GreenFuture, Integrated Photonics, Integration benefits, Manufacturing sustainability, Optical technologies, OpticalComponents, photonic integration, PIC, PICs, ResponsibleManufacturing, sustainability telecommunication, Sustainable, Sustainable future, SustainableNetworks, Transceiver optimization

08 June 2023 - 09 June 2023

9:00 am - 5:00 pm

EFFECT Photonics

Discover Where Light Meets Digital at the Dutch Technology Festival

Join EFFECT Photonics on June 8th and 9th, 2023 at the Dutch Technology Festival - Klokgebouw Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

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

07 March 2023 - 09 March 2023

8:00 am - 5:00 pm

EFFECT Photonics #2423

Discover Where Light Meets Digital at OFC2023

Join us from March 7 to 9, 2023 at OFC in San Diego, California, the world’s largest event for optical networking and communications.

Press Releases

March 3, 2023

EFFECT Photonics Secures $40 Million in Additional Funding

Eindhoven, The Netherlands EFFECT Photonics, a leading developer of highly integrated optical solutions, has secured…

Eindhoven, The Netherlands

EFFECT Photonics, a leading developer of highly integrated optical solutions, has secured an additional $40 million in funding from a group of investors led by Invest-NL and Innovation Industries, along with other existing investors.

The new investment enables the company to accelerate product development and fuel go-to-market initiatives, specifically those related to its integrated coherent optical product portfolio and solutions that meet the industry need for disaggregation of the key components for the growing needs of coherent optical interfaces.

We’re thankful to Invest-NL, Innovation Industries, and our other existing investors for their continued support and confidence in EFFECT Photonics mission and products. This investment positions us well to advance our portfolio of integrated optic solutions that will reshape the future of communications and positively disrupt the status quo.
Roberto Marcoccia, CEO, EFFECT Photonics

Invest-NL’s Deep Tech Fund is established to support companies with innovative, complex technologies focusing on future societal challenges. Our investment in EFFECT Photonics is within that goal. We are very happy to support our existing deep tech portfolio company EFFECT Photonics, together with the other shareholders, for further growth. Management is well-focused on future developments and has positioned EFFECT Photonics as a tier-one business partner.
Gert-Jan Vaessen, Fund Manager Deep Tech Fund at Invest-NL

Innovation Industries is excited to offer our continued support of EFFECT Photonics. We are impressed by the company’s plans for future growth and innovative product portfolio, which is forging new grounds in offering the lowest power per bit.
Nard Sintenie, Partner, Innovation Industries

About EFFECT PHOTONICS

Where Light Meets Digital – EFFECT Photonics is a highly vertically integrated, independent optical systems company addressing the need for high-performance, affordable optic solutions driven by the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth and faster data transfer capabilities. Using our field-proven digital signal processing and forward error correction technologies and ultra-pure light sources, we offer compact form factor solutions with seamless integration, cost efficiency, low power, and security of supply. By leveraging established microelectronics ecosystems, we aim to make our products affordable and available in high volumes to address the challenges in 5G and beyond, access-ready coherent solutions, and cloud and cloud edge services. For more information, please visit: www.effectphotonics.com. Follow EFFECT Photonics on LinkedIn and Twitter.

# # #

Media Contact:

Colleen Cronin
EFFECT Photonics
colleencronin@effectphotonics.com

Tags: 40, 40 million, 5G, coherent, Deep Tech, EFFECT Photonics, Funding, Integrated Photonics, invest nl, Photonics, PIC, Transceivers

Press Releases

February 22, 2023

EFFECT Photonics Unveils Development of Pico Tunable Laser Assembly Enabling QSFP28 100G ZR Coherent Pluggable Modules

-New pTLA to offer industry-best combination of size, affordability, and performance to meet the demand…

-New pTLA to offer industry-best combination of size, affordability, and performance to meet the demand for 100G coherent at the edge

EINDHOVEN, The Netherlands

EFFECT Photonics, a leading developer of highly integrated optical solutions, announced today the development of a new Pico Tunable Laser Assembly (pTLA) to address the growing demand for 100G coherent transceivers in access networks. Tunable lasers are a core component of optical systems enabling dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) which allows network operators to expand their network capacity without expanding the existing fiber infrastructure. Purposely designed for the optical network edge, EFFECT Photonics new pTLA supports both commercial- and industrial-temperature (C-temp and I-temp) operating ranges and offers an ideal combination of power, cost, and size to enable a transceiver form-factors to upgrade the existing infrastructure to a scalable 100 Gbps coherent solution.

According to a recent Heavy Reading survey, 75% of operators believe that 100G coherent pluggable optics will be used extensively in their edge and access evolution strategy. However, market adoption has yet to materialize since affordable and power-efficient 100ZR-based products are currently not available due to stringent size and power consumption requirements that cannot be fulfilled by today’s tunable laser solutions. Designed specifically to address the 100G coherent network edge, EFFECT Photonics’ pTLA will allow coherent pluggables to be deployed more easily and cost effectively in the access domain and will feature optimal laser performance, size and power consumption for a standard QSFP28 form-factor. Furthermore, EFFECT Photonics’ new pTLA utilizes the existing microelectronics ecosystem to allow manufacturing at scale as well as complementary coherent products and services, such as DSPs for those providers in need of a complete transceiver solution.

Today’s operators need an network edge aggregation strategy that offers the best combination of capacity, cost-effectiveness, and performance to evolve network access effectively, and 100G coherent pluggable optics offer just that, EFFECT Photonics’ new Pico Tunable Laser Assembly will be the only purpose designed tunable laser assembly today to serve this emerging market. helping to easily scale up network edge aggregation capacity and benefit from coherent technology.
Roberto Marcoccia, CEO, EFFECT Photonics

About EFFECT PHOTONICS

Using our proprietary digital signal processing and forward error correction technology and ultra-pure light sources, we offer compact form factors with seamless integration, cost efficiency, low power, and security of supply. By leveraging established microelectronics ecosystems, we aim to make our products affordable and available in high volumes to address the challenges in 5G and beyond, access-ready coherent solutions, and cloud and cloud edge services.

For more information, please visit: www.effectphotonics.com. Follow EFFECT Photonics on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Media Contact:

Colleen Cronin
EFFECT Photonics
colleencronin@effectphotonics.com

Tags: 5G, coherent, DSP, EFFECT Photonics, Integrated Photonics, laser, Photonics, PIC, pTLA, Transceivers

Insights

November 9, 2022

The Light Path to a Coherent Cloud Edge

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.

As edge data centers become more common, the issue of interconnecting them becomes more prominent. This situation motivated the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) to create the 400ZR and ZR+ standards for 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. Cignal AI forecasts that 400ZR shipments will dominate the edge applications, as shown in the figure below.

Graph-100G-ports — 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 400ZR standard has made coherent technology and dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) the dominant solution in the metro data center interconnects (DCIs) space. Datacom provider operations teams found the simplicity of coherent pluggables very attractive. There was no need to install and maintain additional amplifiers and compensators as in direct detect technology. A single coherent transceiver plugged into a router could fulfill the requirements.

However, there are still obstacles that prevent coherent from becoming dominant in shorter-reach DCI links at the campus (< 10km distance) and intra-datacenter (< 2km distance) level. These spaces require more optical links and transceivers, and coherent technology is still considered too power-hungry and expensive to become the de-facto solution here.

Fortunately, there are avenues for coherent technology to overcome these barriers. By embracing multi-laser arrays, DSP co-design, and electronic ecosystems, coherent technology can mature and become a viable solution for every data center interconnect scenario.

The Promise of Multi-Laser Arrays

Earlier this year, Intel Labs demonstrated an eight-wavelength laser array fully integrated on a silicon wafer. These milestones are essential for optical transceivers because the laser arrays can allow for multi-channel transceivers that are more cost-effective when scaling up to higher speeds.

Let’s say we need an intra-DCI link with 1.6 Terabits/s of capacity. There are three ways we could implement it:

Four modules of 400G: This solution uses existing off-the-shelf modules but has the largest footprint. It requires four slots in the router faceplate and an external multiplexer to merge these into a single 1.6T channel.
One module of 1.6T: This solution will not require the external multiplexer and occupies just one plug slot on the router faceplate. However, making a single-channel 1.6T device has the highest complexity and cost.
One module with four internal channels of 400G: A module with an array of four lasers (and thus four different 400G channels) will only require one plug slot on the faceplate while avoiding the complexity and cost of the single-channel 1.6T approach.

Table-comparison-module — Table 2: Comparison of different ways to implement a 1.6 Terabit/s link: four modules of 400G, a single-channel 1.6T module, and a module with four channels of 400G.

Multi-laser array and multi-channel solutions will become increasingly necessary to increase link capacity in coherent systems. They will not need more slots in the router faceplate while simultaneously avoiding the higher cost and complexity of increasing the speed with just a single channel.

Co-designing DSP and Optical Engine for Efficiency and Performance

Transceiver developers often source their DSP, laser, and optical engine from different suppliers, so all these chips are designed separately from each other. This setup reduces the time to market and simplifies the research and design processes but comes with trade-offs in performance and power consumption.

In such cases, the DSP is like a Swiss army knife: a jack of all trades designed for different kinds of optical engines but a master of none. For example, current DSPs are designed to be agnostic to the material platform of the photonic integrated circuit (PIC) they are connected to, which can be Indium Phosphide (InP) or Silicon. Thus, they do not exploit the intrinsic advantages of these material platforms. Co-designing the DSP chip alongside the PIC can lead to a much better fit between these components.

To illustrate the impact of co-designing PIC and DSP, let’s look at an example. A PIC and a standard platform-agnostic DSP typically operate with signals of differing intensities, so they need some RF analog electronic components to “talk” to each other. This signal power conversion overhead constitutes roughly 2-3 Watts or about 10-15% of transceiver power consumption.

Figure-dac grey blocks — Figure 3: Simplified diagram of the building blocks of a coherent transceiver in which the DSP drives the optical engine directly from its digital-to-analog converter (DAC). This setup can minimize the power conversion overhead of optical transceivers.

However, the modulator of an InP PIC can run at a lower voltage than a silicon modulator. If this InP PIC and the DSP are designed and optimized together instead of using a standard DSP, the PIC 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 the RF analog driver, doing away with most of the power conversion overhead we discussed previously.

Graph-DSP-power — Figure 4: Comparison between the drive power and power consumption of three different PIC + DSP pairings: standard DSP with a silicon PIC, standard DSP with an InP PIC, and an optimized DSP with an InP.

Additionally, the optimized DSP could also be programmed to do some additional signal conditioning that minimizes the nonlinear optical effects of the InP material, which can reduce noise and improve performance.

Driving Scale Through Existing Electronic Ecosystems

Making coherent optical transceivers more affordable is a matter of volume production. As discussed in a previous article, if PIC production volumes can increase from a few thousand chips per year to a few million, the price per optical chip can decrease from thousands of Euros to mere tens of Euros. Achieving this production goal requires photonics manufacturing chains to learn from electronics and leverage existing electronics manufacturing processes and ecosystems.

While vertically-integrated PIC development has its strengths, a fabless model in which developers outsource their PIC manufacturing to a large-scale foundry is the simplest way to scale to production volumes of millions of units. Fabless PIC developers can remain flexible and lean, relying on trusted large-scale manufacturing partners to guarantee a secure and high-volume supply of chips. Furthermore, the fabless model allows photonics developers to concentrate their R&D resources on their end market and designs instead of costly fabrication facilities.

Further progress must also be made in the packaging, assembly, and testing of photonic chips. While these processes are only a small part of the cost of electronic systems, the reverse happens with photonics. To become more accessible and affordable, the photonics manufacturing chain must become more automated and standardized. It must move towards proven and scalable packaging methods that are common in the electronics industry.

If you want to know more about how photonics developers can leverage electronic ecosystems and methods, we recommend you read our in-depth piece on the subject.

Takeaways

Coherent transceivers are already established as the solution for metro Data Center Interconnects (DCIs), but they need to become more affordable and less power-hungry to fit the intra- and campus DCI application cases. Fortunately, there are several avenues for coherent technology to overcome these cost and power consumption barriers.

Multi-laser arrays can avoid the higher cost and complexity of increasing capacity with just a single transceiver channel. Co-designing the optics and electronics can allow the electronic DSP to exploit the intrinsic advantages of specific photonics platforms such as indium phosphide. Finally, leveraging electronic ecosystems and processes is vital to increase the production volumes of coherent transceivers and make them more affordable.

By embracing these pathways to progress, coherent technology can mature and become a viable solution for every data center interconnect scenario.

Tags: campus, cloud, cloud edge, codesign, coherent, DCI, DSP, DSPs, DWDM, integration, intra, light sources, metro, modulator, multi laser arrays, photonic integration, PIC, power consumption, wafer testing

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PIC

Explore Our ECOC2023 Demos:

Into the Global Supply Chain

Testing the Transceiver

Takeaways

Key Components of An Optical Transceiver

Key Design Processes in a Transceiver

The Importance of a Co-Design Philosophy

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Integration Impacts Energy Efficiency and Optical Losses

More Integration Saves Scarce Resources

Early Testing Avoids Wastage

Full Integration Drives Sustainability

Explore Our Demos:

Build Your Own 100G ZR Coherent Module

Tune Your Own PIC (Photonic Integrated Circuit)

How Coherent 100G Can Move into Mobile X-haul

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

Towards 100G Coherent and QSFP28 in Business Services

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Eindhoven, The Netherlands

About EFFECT PHOTONICS

EINDHOVEN, The Netherlands

About EFFECT PHOTONICS

The Promise of Multi-Laser Arrays

Co-designing DSP and Optical Engine for Efficiency and Performance

Driving Scale Through Existing Electronic Ecosystems

Takeaways

Telecom/Datacom

Emerging Industries

DSP & FEC

Ultra Pure Light Sources

Ecosystems

Pluggable Modules – Direct Detect

Pluggable Modules – Coherent

Sub-Assemblies

ASICs

View All

Insights

Press Releases

In the News

Events

Careers

Knowledge Center

Company Info

Contact Us