NeoPhotonics Corp. (NYSE: NPTN) says it has begun sampling a coherent CFP Digital Coherent Optics (DCO) optical transceiver. The new ClearLight CFP-DCO sets up NeoPhotonics as a second source for those looking for an alternative to Acacia Communications' CFP-DCO (see "Acacia Communications shipping coherent CFP").
According to NeoPhotonics' director of marketing, Ferris Lipscomb, the currently sampling version of the ClearLight optical module will support 100-Gbps transmission. A future iteration, likely to start sampling in the next few quarters, will support 200 Gbps via 16-QAM modulation.
Lipscomb says that NeoPhotonics is engaged with about five customers on the transceiver, a list that includes not only systems vendors but data center operators as well. He said that potential customers are interested in the device to add 100-Gbps coherent capabilities to currently fielded systems as well as to support new line card designs. Contrary to what was stated here when this story was originally posted, not all of the customers have received samples yet, Lightwave has learned.
A NeoPhotonics press release states that the device leverages "the latest advances in 16-nm Digital Signal Processors (DSPs)." Lipscomb would not identify its DSP source, but noted the optical transceiver is designed to enable NeoPhotonics to leverage multiple DSP sources.
The coherent transceiver benefits from a number of already fielded NeoPhotonics components. It also features standard hard decision staircase forward error correction (FEC) to promote interoperability, as well as proprietary soft-decision FEC for high-performance applications.
Lipscomb said that NeoPhotonics is not yet discussing the potential for a CFP2-DCO module, but noted such a device would be a logical extension of the newly announced CFP transceiver.
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