The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) says it will hold a half-day public workshop concurrent with OFC 2017 in Los Angeles on 112 Gbps per lane serial electrical interconnect. The workshop will take place Thursday, March 23 (the final day of exhibits) in the Los Angeles Convention Center and will feature subject matter experts from the OIF and an industry view by Alan Weckel of Dell'Oro Group.
The workshop is an outgrowth of the OIF's CEI-112G project. Launched this past August, the project seeks to define the serial electrical interface for next-generation optical modules at 112 Gbps. This OIF expects the initial project and follow-on work to create a series of CEI-112G clauses for various reaches, ranging from ultra-short reach interfaces designed for intra multi-chip module (MCM) communications to longer chip-to-chip interfaces.
"Operation of electrical interfaces at 112-Gbps speeds is feasible, but demands careful attention to some of the thorny technical issues that are involved and the technology tradeoff decisions that are going to be required," said Nathan Tracy of TE Connectivity and the OIF vice president of marketing. "This workshop will present the multiple facets and perspectives for the 112-Gbps serial electrical development work including applications, equipment, optics, SerDes, connectors, and channels."
The workshop's first half will focus on industry views and requirements for the anticipated application spaces. Such requirements likely will combine such parameters as:
- loss budgets (distance, number of connectors)
- electrical and optical data rates
- electrical channel properties
- power constraints
- equalization and retimers
- mechanical constraints (faceplate density, etc.).
The second half of the workshop will focus on potential electrical link and interconnect technologies to meet such requirements.
The fees to attend are $150 for OIF members and $200 for non-members. Both fees include lunch. Additional details, including links to registration, are on the OIF website.
The OIF will be busy at OFC 2017; the group recently announced that it also will hold a public readout of results from its SDN Transport-API (T-API) trial with the ONF at the event (see "OIF details release plans for SDN Transport API demo results").
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