JOHN WILLIAMSON CO-PACKAGED OPTICS
for use in co-packaging • The development of the Extra Short Reach (XSR/XSR+) interface for higher loss co-packaging implementations. Although the OIF doesn’t comment on project timelines, Bovington reports that work on OIF documents is “progressing normally”. He cites, as an example of the industry interest in these projects, the OIF’s well-attended interop demo at OFC this year. “This showed how the industry has collaborated to develop many of the elements needed for the 3.2T module effort, including live demos of the ELSFP,” he recalls Another big CPO standards hitter is the Consortium For On-Board Optics (COBO). In July COBO released a white paper entitled ‘Design Considerations of Optical Connectivity in a Co-Packaged or On-Board Optics Switch’. This involved some 47 companies, took over two years to complete.
“The organisations will then address the technology to determine what interoperability agreements are needed.” One of the leading - and busiest - organisations working on CPO standards is the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF). Jeff Hutchins Ranovus and OIF Physical and Link Layer Working Group – Co-Packaging vice chair and board member, recounts how the OIF started the Co-packaging Framework Project as a vehicle for the OIF members to explore the co-packaging space across a wide range of applications to understand the various challenges and needs. Under the umbrella of the Co-packaging Framework Project are: • The 3.2T module project • The External Laser Small Formfactor Pluggable (ELSFP) project • The effort to adapt the Common Management Interface System (CMIS)
Arabzadeh is unsure about NPO: “NPO has the disadvantages of the CPO and does not have the advantages of the module,” he argues. Hutchins states that one of the more obvious industry trends is supporting co-packaged solutions at higher data rates such as with 200G serial electrical interfaces For his part Vallo speculates that the next stage of the standards discussions could lead to a standard socket design that would allow and support different optical specifications and reliability requirements. “Such standardisation processes can take up to five years,” he cautions. STANDARD BEARERS It goes without saying that formulating, agreeing and adopting standards is a critical enabler for the largescale commercialisation of most new technologies. In the case of CPO experts say the standardisation process is at the beginning of its evolution. “Standardisation is just getting going,” says Gasman. Vallo describes how standards bodies have established internal projects - technical conversations - to work toward CPO. “Although some activities have been reported, the conversations are still at the beginning as they lead discussions about the overall architecture of CPO for different applications and identify commonalities,” he observes.
Lawrence Gasman Founder and President, CIR
Hamid Arabzadeh Chairman and CEO, Ranovus
Martin Vallo. Ph.D. Senior analyst Photonics, Yole Intelligence
Jock Bovington Cisco OIF Member
Jeff Hutchins Ranovus, OIF Physical and Link Layer Working Group
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| ISSUE 30 | Q3 2022
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