JANUARY 28, 2010 By Stephen Hardy -- Speaking at Lightwave’s “Future of Optical Networking” e-conference today, former Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) president Joe Berthold provided hints of what the group’s 100-Gbps module multisource agreement (MSA) might look like.

Berthold, who is vice president, network architecture at Ciena Corp., reported that the OIF is making good progress on the development of the Implementation Agreements that will be the main results of the group’s 100G DWDM project. While he said it was against OIF policy to make public predictions for the completion date of the project, he heartily agreed that it was “reasonable” to assume the work would be completed this year.

The module MSA is part of the 100G DWDM effort. In response to an audience question about why the OIF didn’t just adopt the CFP form factor, Berthold said that the current state of technology would not permit the components necessary to transmit and receive the OIF’s modulation format of choice -- dual polarization quadrature phase-shift keying with coherent detection -- to fit within a CFP device. Instead, the OIF is looking at a size somewhere in the range of 5x7 or 6x8 inches. The maximum power consumption (another part of the MSA specifications) might come in at around 80 to 90 W, he added.

Berthold agreed with general industry sentiment that the coherent receiver technology -- and, in particular, the very high-speed electronics associated with it -- would be a major challenge for module vendors that hope to address the 100G market. Interestingly, detailed specifications for the coherent receiver’s makeup aren’t part of the OIF’s scope of work. Berthold said that industry members of the OIF believed at the start of the project that the receiver offers significant opportunities for innovation -- and therefore competitive differentiation -- and thus wanted free rein to come up with the receiver designs themselves.