NeoPhotonics Corp. (NYSE: NPTN) said that its Coherent CFP Digital Coherent Optics (DCO) optical transceiver has achieved general availability and is currently qualified at multiple customers. Commercial shipments began in the fourth quarter of 2017, says the company.
The DCO platform uses commercial 16-nm digital signal processors (DSPs) and is capable of single-wavelength 100-Gbps transmission for data center interconnect (DCI) through long-haul transmission distances. According to NeoPhotonics, the DCO module is the ideal choice for applications using existing client CFP slots or for OEMs in need of a "turn-key" option. NeoPhotonics' high-power external cavity ultra-narrow linewidth tunable laser and its high-responsivity coherent receiver eliminate the need for an EDFA. The result is higher transmitter OSNR, enabling longer transmission distances and colorless/directionless/contentionless (CDC) ROADM operations, the company attests.
The 100-Gbps version (there's another version that transmits at a different rate on which NeoPhotonics isn't commenting) can increase the range and capacity for metro and DCI applications by using a standard 100GbE or OTU-4 interface, which can be directly plugged into existing 100G CFP client-side slots. For interoperability, the module integrates standard hard decision staircase forward error correction, along with proprietary soft decision forward error correction for high-performance applications. The ClearLight CFP-DCO also is fully compliant to the CFP MSA management interface specification version 2.0 r09.
"The general availability of our ClearLight CFP-DCO pluggable Coherent transponder represents a significant step forward for NeoPhotonics," said Tim Jenks, NeoPhotonics chairman and CEO. "Customers can now directly access the performance of our high-volume coherent optical components in combination with the leading commercial DSP electronics in a standard pluggable package."
NeoPhotonics announced that it had begun sampling the coherent CFP DCO optical transceiver in 2016 (see "NeoPhotonics samples ClearLight CFP-DCO coherent optical transceiver"). The company will demonstrate its CFP-DCO module and its components suite for 600G and 1.2T, as well as its family of products for high-speed applications, at OFC 2018 in San Diego, March 13-15.
The ClearLight Coherent CFP-DCO joins the CFP2-ACO within the ClearLight portfolio (see "NeoPhotonics offers CFP2-ACO coherent transceiver for 200/400/600 Gbps").
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