OFC is Back: Here’s What’s Hot!

By Acacia | Posted on March 2, 2022

We’re excited to be back in person at OFC 2022. As we head to the show next week, we’re sharing our thoughts on the hottest topics and trends. From 400G coherent pluggables and performance optimized multi-haul solutions…. to interoperability standards and more – the innovation continues across the industry.

 

The Growth of 400G Pluggables
LightCounting’s Market Forecast from October 2021 estimates that the opportunity for pluggables based on 400ZR and 800ZR technology will surpass $2.3 billion by 2026. Acacia is experiencing strong demand for its 400G products and is ramping quickly.

This is being driven by growing bandwidth demand that is putting pressure on cloud providers to increase the data center interconnects (DCI) that link their facilities around the globe. 400G pluggable modules represent a key architectural change in high-bandwidth data center interconnects because they can be plugged directly into switches and routers offering the same density for both coherent DWDM and client optics in the same chassis. Much has been written about how this architectural change helps network operators support their growing bandwidth demands in a more cost-efficient manner.

Service providers are embracing the same technology to address applications with greater reaches and more complex network architectures. Acacia is continuing to introduce product configurations that offer maximum flexibility for service providers to leverage common technology to scale their network capacity.

We believe 400G pluggable solutions including “coherent gray optics” will continue to expand and allow customers to address a wide range of applications for cloud DCI and service provider networks with interoperability support for 400ZR, OpenZR+, Open ROADM, and CableLabs.

Acacia experts are presenting in a few sessions on this topic if you’d like to hear more:

Show Floor Program: Deployment of 400ZR and the Ongoing OIF Work to Define 800ZR/LR
Date/Time: Wednesday, March 9, 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Acacia Speaker: Tom Williams, Sr. Director of Marketing

Show Floor Program: OpenZR+: Enabling High-performance Router-based Optics
Date/Time: Thursday, March 10, 11:30 – 12:30 pm
Acacia Speaker: Tom Williams, Sr. Director of Marketing

Market Watch Panel V: Evolution of Coherent Transceiver Architectures for Specific Applications
Date/Time: Thursday, March 10, 10:30 – 12:00 pm
Acacia Speaker: Anuj Malik, Director of Product and Strategy

Performance Optimized Multi-Haul Solutions
Another hot topic continues to be ultra-high-performance multi-haul solutions.  The discussions around the importance of Silicon Photonics and roadmap alignment with industry trends continue.

Coherent technology innovations are helping service providers evolve their optical networks, optimize performance and lower cost per bit. To continue to advance, these providers need high-performance solutions that maximize their fiber investment, reduce power, simplify operations, and decrease costs.

To meet these needs, Acacia’s multi-haul coherent optical solutions work across multiple applications to help cost-effectively meet bandwidth needs. Acacia’s latest innovation, the Coherent Interconnect Module 8 (CIM 8) solution, is the industry’s first 1.2T pluggable coherent module designed to enable network operators to maximize transmission data rate across a wide range of multi-haul network applications including DCI, metro, long-haul, and subsea. In fact, the CIM 8 just received a 5.0 rating in the annual Lightwave Innovation Reviews.

 

If you’d like to learn more about the advancements in this area, we have several Acacia speakers sharing their expertise at these OFC sessions:

Workshop: Single-Carrier Versus Multi-Carrier for >800G Coherent Optics: A Revived Debate After a Decade
Date/Time: Sunday, March 6, 4:00 – 6:30 pm
Acacia Speaker: Ian Dedic, Distinguished Engineer

Workshop: How will 200G (and beyond) per Lambda IM/DD Compete with Coherent Technology for Intra-DC Applications
Date/Time: Sunday, March 6, 4:00 – 6:30 pm
Acacia Speaker: Mark Heimbuch, Principal Engineer

Panel: What are the Parallelization Technologies for Cost and Energy Efficient 1.6Tb Links?
Date/Time: Tuesday, March 8, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
Acacia Speaker: Long Chen, Director of Engineering

Panel: 1.6T SiPh Coherent Solution for Intra data Center Interconnection
Date/Time:  Tuesday, March 8, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
Acacia Speaker:  Hongbin Zhang, Principal Engineer 

Acacia Participating in First-Ever Public Multivendor 400ZR Interop Demo
Acacia’s 400ZR QSFP-DD and 400G CFP2 Pluggable Coherent Optical Modules will be used in the Optical Internetworking Forum Interoperability Demonstration to showcase progress on 400ZR.   OIF’s 400ZR project is critical in facilitating the reduction of cost and complexity for high bandwidth data center interconnects and promoting interoperability among optical module manufacturers. This is the first-ever public multivendor 400ZR interop demo. The demo consists of a full implementation of 400GE across an 80km, DWDM ecosystem using multiple modules, router, open line systems, and test equipment vendors, demonstrating the project achieved its interoperability goals.  You can see the demo at OIF’s booth, #5101.

Come See Us!
If you are attending the show and want to connect in person or virtually, we’d welcome the opportunity to meet with you. Click here to set up a meeting.  We hope to see you in San Diego!