Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) has announced a new version of its ICE6 coherent optical engine. Dubbed ICE6 Turbo, the upcoming Infinite Capacity Engine will operate at 100 Gbaud to support the transmission of 1.6 Tbps in the form of a pair of 800-Gbps streams. The company expects the ICE6 Turbo, which will be released in the fourth quarter of this year, will find strong play where operators seek 4x400GbE across long-haul distances and 3x400GbE across ultra-long-haul reaches.
According to Ron Johnson, general manager of Infinera’s Optical Systems & Network Solutions Group, and Rob Shore, the company’s senior vice president of marketing, the baud-rate increase (from the previous 96 Gbaud) and various algorithm tweaks enable the ICE6 Turbo to provide an approximately 30% performance improvement in terms of reach and spectral efficiency over the current ICE6. Johnson told Lightwave this enhancement equates to significant improvement at 800G over Infinera’s competitors. The device will support 1200-km reach at 800G, almost 4000 km at 600G, and 20,000 km at 200G, according to Johnson and Shore.
Network operators will be able to mix and match transmission rates and reach requirements, Johnson points out. For example, three 400GbE transmissions could be mapped across a pair of 600-Gbps streams to take advantage of the nearly 4000-km capabilities the ICE6 Turbo will offer at 600G. The device will accommodate operation in the C-Band and L-Band.
As software upgrades will be necessary to take full advantage of the ICE6 Turbo, its general release will coincide with the next major software update, currently scheduled for early in the fourth quarter of this year. The company will demonstrate the capabilities of the ICE6 Turbo at this year's OFC 2022 in San Diego, March 8-10.
More to come
Johnson expressed the belief that the ICE6 has enough headroom for additional improvements in the future. That said, he and Shore noted that coherent transmission requirements are becoming increasingly fragmented, particularly in terms of performance requirements and cost as coherent transmission finds its way into a wider variety of applications and technologies such as pluggable 800G coherent modules achieve demand. For this reason, the Infinera spokespeople believe that there will indeed be an ICE7 (and maybe others) in the future.
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