Wednesday, August 14, 2019

OIF launches higher baud rate coherent driver modulator project

The OIF has begun a new project to develop a higher baud rate coherent driver modulator.

The “Higher Baud Rate Coherent Driver Modulator” project will define a new version of the Coherent Driver Modulator supporting at least 96 Gbaud for the low modem implementation penalty segment of the coherent market for single optical carrier line rates beyond 400 Gbit/s. Designed for higher data rates and longer reach and optimized for performance, this project is the next generation of the High Bandwidth Coherent Driver Modulator (HB-CDM) Implementation Agreement (IA) published last year.

Following this year’s OIF Q319 Technical and MA&E Committees Meeting in Montreal, OIF also launched work on a white paper detailing low-rate service multiplexing using FlexE and 400ZR. The whitepaper seeks to eliminate ambiguity and provide clarification on how 400ZR should be leveraged in multiplexing applications. Various network operators are looking for a multiplexing scheme to support lower-rate Ethernet clients (e.g. 4x100GE) into a 400ZR coherent line. This technical white paper will educate the market on how FlexE can be used to aggregate low-rate Ethernet services (e.g. 4x100GE) into 400ZR interfaces.

Andrew Schmitt, founder and directing analyst, Cignal AI gave member attendees a brief overview of emerging pluggable coherent technologies and the opportunity this new market presents and had the opportunity to speak with members about current and upcoming OIF work.

“It’s clear that OIF is not resting after a successful effort to standardize 400ZR, proven by the launch of two new projects at the recent Q3 meeting,” said Schmitt. “Also, as interest in pluggable coherent solutions grows, it is good to see OIF soliciting feedback from additional network operators in order to shape requirements for next generation standards.”

https://www.oiforum.com/