The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) has launched a SERDES Framer Interface SFI-X project that will define a scalable interface from an optical module to a framer device for line rates from 40 Gbps to 100 Gbps and beyond. The SFI-X project forms an important contribution to the requirements for transport of high-speed data via the OIF's Common Electrical Interface (CEI). The current, ongoing CEI-25 project establishes electrical signaling rates for high-speed backplanes.
The next generation SFI-X will support the aggregation and de-skewing of 4-16 data lanes at CEI (6 - 11G) or future CEI-25 (20 - 25G) signal rates. The SFI-X project is an extension of the prevalent OIF SFI-4 specification for 10 Gbps interfaces. SFI-X is targeted to support the 100G work being addressed by standards bodies like IEEE 802.3 HSSG and ITU-T, and forums like ATIS and the Ethernet Alliance.
"The OIF's role is to perform a gap analysis of the missing elements required to bring 100G technology to market," said Steve Joiner of Finisar and OIF Vice President of Marketing. "The OIF member companies are beginning to identify the gaps and to look for ways to foster the rapid, cost-effective development of new technologies for optical internetworking."http://www.oiforum.com/
- In December 2006, the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) finalized the Scalable System Packet Interface (SPI-S) implementation agreement. SPI-S is a channelized, streaming-packet interface that scales from 6 Gbps to hundreds of Gbps for chip-to-chip and backplane applications. It is a successor to the widely deployed OIF SPI 4.2 interface, and leverages the OIF's Common Electrical Interface (CEI) to take advantage of high rate serial physical interconnects.
SPI-S is specified to run over CEI, which is defined at 6 and 11 Gbps for both short reach and long reach applications. SPI-S can also be used with other physical interconnects including OIF's SxI-5. The OIF also recently announced the initiation of a CEI-25 project to extend the CEI serial interface into the 25 Gbps range. The scalable nature of SPI-S will allow it to take advantage of CEI-25 when the next generation interconnect is fully defined. - At this Spring's OFC/NFOEC conference in Anaheim, California, Alcatel-Lucent discussed the potential for upgrading existing 40 Gbps transparent long-haul transport networks to 100 Gbps Ethernet. Specifically, researchers at Bell Labs transmitted ten closely spaced 100 Gbps WDM data channels over a 1,200 kilometer optical transmission distance in a systems experiment that included six optical add/drop nodes like those used in today's transparent mesh networks. Using this design, the researchers achieved an unprecedented spectral efficiency of 1 bit per second per Hertz (b/s/Hz) over the 1200 Km distance using only a single polarization of light.
- In December 2006, researchers at Siemens, working in cooperation with Micram, the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications (Heinrich-Hertz-Institut) and Eindhoven Technical University, achieved an optical transmission rate of 107 Gbps over a single fiber channel using purely electric processing in both the transmitter and receiver.
- In November 2006, an experiment conducted by Finisar, Infinera, Internet2, Level 3 Communications, and University of California at Santa Cruz successfully transmitted a 100GbE signal from Tampa, Florida to Houston, Texas, and back again, over ten 10 Gbps channels through the Level 3 network. The transmission used an Infinera-proposed specification for 100GbE across multiple links. A single Xilinx FPGA implemented this packet numbering scheme and electrically transmitted all ten signals to ten of Finisar's 10 Gbps XFP optical transceivers, which in turn converted the signals to optics. These signals were then transmitted to an Infinera DTN DWDM system and handed off to Infinera systems within the Level 3 network where it was transmitted across the Level 3 network to Houston and back.
- In September 2006, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) set an optical transmission record of 14 terabits per second (Tbps) over a single 160 km long optical fiber. Significantly, the demonstration ran optical signals at 111 Gbps over a DWDM system supporting 140 channels.
