ANTONY SAVVAS REDESIGNING LASERS
REDESIGNING LASERS FOR NEXT-GENERATION OPTICAL NETWORKS The global photonics market is set to be worth over US$780bn by 2023, according to research firm MarketsandMarkets, Antony Savvas looks at some of the latest developments around lasers for next-generation optical networks that drive this market growth.
M any of the support 5G, the Internet of Things, software-defined networking and the connectivity that is now required between cloud data centres and the edge to better serve end users. Patricia Bower, senior manager for portfolio marketing at Ciena, says component design - based on foundational technologies like complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS), indium phosphide and silicon photonics - is one of the most important arenas for driving innovation in optical developments in the laser market are designed to support the new networks that are needed to
network infrastructures to become more programmable and flexible. This transformation to programmable infrastructures is driving the need for continued innovation in coherent optical system design to encompass new features and capabilities and extend use cases to new areas of the network.” Footprint-optimised solutions targeted to fit into a specific form factor and power envelope are key, she said. “System designers who also do component- level design can apply the advances in [the aforementioned] foundational technologies to meet the challenges for new application sets,” said Bower. Indium phosphide (InP) and silicon photonics (SiPhot) are now the two process technologies underpinning improved electro-optical transmit and receive chains for today’s coherent systems, she added. THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY FOR THE RIGHT APPLICATION InP has the advantage of being able to support high-bandwidth signals to address high-performance optical functions, as well as the ability to incorporate laser sources and amplification on-chip. SiPhot
has emerged as a key technology for footprint-optimised applications owing to a high degree of photonic-electronic integration, the avoidance of hermetic packaging and the ability for system vendors to leverage high-yield fabrication
processes for volume production. Choosing the appropriate material
platform for the target application, said Bower, means factoring in the relative importance of performance, level of integration and volume scale. “With new design approaches, SiPhot performance limits can be stretched and with the ability to leverage wafer scale manufacturing, InP can also be amenable to volume applications. In some cases, the optimal choice may even be a design based on a combination of both technologies,” she said. Infinera recently demonstrated the importance of InP with the “successful completion” of a live network trial of 800G single-wavelength transmission at 96 Gbaud over 950km, across a long-haul link in a “major North American network operator’s production network”. Powered by Infinera’s sixth-generation dual-800G Infinite Capacity Engine
network infrastructure. Bower says, “Massive growth in fibre capacity demand, along with the need to have more networks processing functionality at the edge, is driving
Patricia Bower, senior manager, portfolio marketing, Ciena
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| ISSUE 22 | Q4 2020
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