| 10:00 | 10:25 | Next Generation Coherent Interfaces: Standardized Pluggable vs Proprietary Multi-haul – Tom Williams Sr. Director of Marketing, Acacia, now part of Cisco |
| The industry has made exceptional advancements in coherent implementations that are changing network architectures. Multi-haul solutions offer flexible transmission features, such as adaptive baud rate and probabilistic constellation shaping, as well as performance optimized design implementations that approach the Shannon Limit. Industry standardized pluggable solutions are being widely adopted in high-volume metro applications for both webscale and service provider networks, resulting in the fastest growing segment of the transport market. The presentation will discuss how these trends will influence the design of next generation optics and network architectures. | ||
| 10:30 | 10:50 | Optical I/O technology to meet future demands of AI – Terry Thorn, VP of Commercial Operations, Ayar Labs |
| As AI model sizes continue to grow, models will have 100 trillion or more connections, exceeding the technical capabilities of existing AI platforms. New optical interconnect solutions that enable novel system architectures are needed to address the scale, performance and power demands of the next generation of AI. In this talk, Terry Thorn will present the latest advancements in optical I/O, a new generation of chiplet and multi-wavelength laser solutions that provide dramatically increased bandwidth, at lower latency, over longer distances and at a fraction of the power of existing electrical I/O solutions. His talk will encompass key progress and milestones with the manufacturability, industry demand and ecosystem development for the technology to meet the future demands of AI. | ||
| 10:55 | 11:15 | CW-WDM MSA: Specifications for Multi-Wavelength Advanced Integrated Optics – Chris Cole, Chair, CW-WDM MSA |
| Emerging advanced integrated optics applications, such as high-density co-packaged optics, optical computing, and AI, are moving to 8, 16, and 32 wavelength optical sources. In 2021 the CW-WDM MSA released the first industry specification for multi-wavelength optical laser sources, creating opportunities for transceiver and laser suppliers to develop innovative products. Chris Cole, Chair of the MSA, will share the latest updates from the MSA, including product development progress from the MSA members. | ||
| 11:20 | 11:40 | Solving Technical and Operational Challenges in pushing Coherent to the Edge – Dave Welch, PhD. Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Infinera |
| With the number of connected devices and bandwidth demand skyrocketing, service providers are faced with the challenges of coping with massive growth in bandwidth, reducing CapEx/OpEx, and simplifying the network. To do this, they need to extend coherent technology to the edge. While coherent technology enables an order of magnitude increase in capacity, extending it to the volume-driven edge (millions of units) requires highly sophisticated designs that combine high performance with cost-effectiveness and high-volume manufacturability. This session covers innovative and proven design principals of building blocks such as TROSA and DSP to solve technical and operational challenges in pushing coherent technology to the Edge. | ||
| 11:45 | 12:05 | Title: Open optical networks: reality and ambition – Gert Grammel, Chair of OOPT-PSE Working Group, Juniper Networks / Telecominfraproject |
| As the Internet is changing, open optical networks are emerging from tribal ancestry to a state of being actively deployed. Industry Groups filled the gap, left by standards development organizations in promoting interoperability and consistency of optical solutions. An astounding degree of openness has already been achieved, but much work is still ahead to unleash its true potential. One key driver of this evolution is the OOPT Project group of the Telecominfraproject fostering interoperable blueprints for deployment across the industry. Touching upon the state of the art, ambitious use cases and missing pieces are discussed. | ||
| 12:25 | 12:45 | The ever ongoing discussion on CPO and why coherent is likely going to make it into (some) datacenter soon – Sven Otte, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Sicoya |
| The question whether Co-packaged Optics (CPO) is a paradigm shift from pluggable transceivers and inevitable for next generations of datacenters has been debated over the last two years and it remains unanswered for now. While there is evidence that both small and large optics companies are currently working CPO type products, we believe that co-packaging is rather a technology trend which will gradually materialize and is not a radical replacement of transceivers for a new generation of SERDES speed in Datacenters (DC). In this presentation we will briefly review the trends and provide examples where CPOs might be useful. A more recent and doubtlessly interesting discussion is related to the use of coherent technologies for next generation 1.6T transceivers for DC applications. Coherent detection and the use of QAM/PSK modulation formats is widely adopted in long-haul systems as well as in ZR DCI applications. Stringent laser requirements, complex DSP architectures are seen as cost prohibitive for the use in DC. Moreover, the high error floors and resulting need for powerful FEC’s are not meeting low latency requirements of datacenter operators. However, we believe that both cost and latency requirements can be met if a coherent architecture is developed for the data center specifically and highly integrated Silicon Photonics is used an enabling technology platform. In the presentation we will provide insights into the current state of research on this topic and will provide intelligence why coherent is not the best solution for every DC architecture. | ||
| 12:50 | 13:10 | Data Center Networks – evolving to CPO or advancing pluggables – Lisa Huff, Senior Principal Analyst, Optical Components, Omdia |
| Omdia’s first report on co-packaged optics (CPO) was published in 2021 when the ICP data center optical components market was abuzz with rumors that CPO will be needed for the next generation of switching architecture. Over the last year, there has been a plethora of activity by standardization groups, network equipment manufacturers (NEMs), optical transceiver suppliers, switch silicon providers, and internet content providers (ICPs) themselves regarding CPO. Omdia has carried out extensive market research to determine how the CPO market is progressing and where the opportunities might be. The key drivers for CPO development continue to be the promise of lower power consumption, higher density, and lower cost per bit. However, there are still questions about CPO’s promise versus reality, along with the timeline for its overall development and actual need. This presentation will discuss these questions and possible answers. | ||
| 13:15 | 13:35 | : Full opto-electronic compliance testing of PIC-based transceivers in manufacturing – Aldo Gutierrez, Product Line Manager, EXFO |
| Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) help data centers and transceiver vendors through the miniaturization of devices to increase the bandwidth density while preserving low-power consumption and providing highly efficient thermal management. This breakthrough in the optoelectronic industry helps to relieve the stress due to ever-increasing performance demands and costs pressures in the context of 5G applications. Transceiver vendors need to test thousands of samples per day; therefore testing must deliver accurate, reliable and rapid results. Learn how a unique innovation in end-to-end transceiver testing now enables fully automated optoelectrical characterization of transceivers. | ||
Tom Williams Sr. Director of Marketing, Acacia, now part of Cisco
Tom is responsible for marketing and communications activities for Acacia, now part of Cisco. Prior to Acacia, Tom spent 14 years at Optium and Finisar Corporations, where he held various management roles, including Director of Product Line Management for high speed (>100G) transmission products. Tom has also held positions at Lucent Technologies and Northrop Grumman Corporation. He has an MS in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Widener University.
Terry Thorn, VP of Commercial Operations, Ayar Labs
Terry joined Ayar Labs after 24 years at Intel Corporation where he held a variety of leadership positions in product line management, marketing, global cloud strategy, new business development and sales. Most recently, Terry was the GM of Global Accounts in the Cloud & Enterprise Sales Group with direct ownership of some of Intel's largest customers. He has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Alabama.
Chris Cole, Chair, CW-WDM MSA
Chris is the Chair of the CW-WDM MSA and an Adviser to II-VI Incorporated, in the Office of the CTO, investigating advanced optical interfaces. Before, he was VP, Advanced Development, Finisar Corp. where he led the definition and development of 10 through 400 Gb/s optical interfaces for datacom and telecom applications. He delivered multiple generations of optical transceivers leading to ~$1billion of Finisar revenue. The 40G, 100G and 200G interfaces he proposed in the IEEE constitute the majority of optical datacom links in datacenters, and account for billions of optics industry revenue. Chris is an IEEE Fellow elected for "contributions to 10G, 40G, and 100G Optical Ethernet and OTN interfaces." His bibliography has over 300 articles, presentations, contributions, lectures and patents in the areas of optics, communications, signal processing, integrated circuits, and ultrasound. Chris received B.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dave Welch, PhD. Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Infinera
David F. Welch, Ph.D. co-founded Infinera in 2001, and serves as Chief Innovation Officer and member of the Board of Directors. He holds over 130 patents in optical transmission technologies, and has authored over 300 technical publications in the same field. In recognition of his technical contributions to the optical industry, he has been awarded the OSA’s Adolph Lomb Medal, Joseph Fraunhofer Award and John Tyndall Award, the IET’s JJ Thompson Medal for Achievement in Electronics, and the IEEE Ernst Weber Managerial Leadership Award. He is a Fellow of the OSA and the IEEE. In 2016, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Welch holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Delaware and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.
Gert Grammel, Chair of OOPT-PSE Working Group, Juniper Networks / Telecominfraproject
Gert Grammel holds a Dipl.-Ing. degree in Cybernetics obtained in 1993 and is since 2011 with Juniper Networks. In 1999 he spearheaded the introduction of intelligent control planes in transport networks (GMPLS) thereby modernizing the controller architecture and network resilience to cope with technology integration. As a member of the Telecominfraproject.com (TIP) since 2016, Gert is leading the Physical Simulation Environment (PSE) Group. TIP is an engineering-focused initiative driven by operators, equipment suppliers, and network integrators to disaggregate optical networks and achieve interoperability. During his tenure, the PSE Group developed GNPy, an open optical performance planning and design tool enabling the industry to benchmark proprietary implementations with a public reference implementation. He currently works with the PSE-team on evolving GNPy as a digital twin of optical networks by leveraging advances in AI/ML.
Sven Otte, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Sicoya
Sven Otte is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Sicoya. Prior to Sicoya Sven was the Global Business Director of Optoelectronics at FCI. Before joining FCI he was Global Vice President of Engineering at MergeOptics, Senior IC Design Engineer at Multilink Technologies and Senior System Architect at Santel Networks in Fremont, USA. Sven holds a Ph.D. in optical communications from the University of Kiel and authored several articles about electronic dispersion compensation for high speed optical transmission systems and Silicon Photonics technologies
Lisa Huff, Senior Principal Analyst, Optical Components, Omdia
Lisa Huff is a Senior Principal Analyst, Optical Components at Omdia. She joined Ovum (now Omdia) as a Principal Analyst, Optical Components in March 2018. Prior to that, she had her own market research and consulting firm, Discerning Analytics, LLC (DA) for nine years. Lisa is a Certified Data Center Management Professional (CDCMP®) and degreed electrical engineer with over 35 years experience. Her expertise is in data centers, optical components, data communications cabling and connectivity and networking equipment. Lisa has authored over 60 technical papers and market research reports and has chaired and presented at many industry conferences.
Aldo Gutierrez, Product Line Manager, EXFO
Aldo Gutierrez is Product Specialist in Manufacturing Design and Research at EXFO. He has more than five years of experience in research and development in the field of optical communications. He has brought his expertise to around 20 international scientific conferences and has also collaborated in more than 15 peer-reviewed articles as author and coauthor. He holds a bachelor's and master's degree in electrical engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a PhD in physics from the University of Rennes 1. At EXFO, Aldo supports and launches tactical activities related to optical spectrum analyzers, tunable filters, BER testers, optical scopes and 400G transport & datacom solutions.