NTT Electronics (NEL) announces availability of industry's first low power 100G DSP-ASIC- Enables a healthy supply chain for large scale 100G deployments
Feb 29, 2012

Abstract: NTT Electronics (NEL), a leader in the integrated optical and electronic component technology for the 100G and higher data rate optical communications, today announced the availability of low power consumption Digital Signal Processor ASIC, an enabler of coherent 100G fiber optical communication systems. The chip was used to successfully carry out a 100G line-side vendor interoperability demonstration. With the availability of this lower power product, NEL continues to demonstrate its industry leadership of both optical and electrical, integrated optical internetworking forum (OIF) compliant, modules becoming a one stop shop for the industries 100G coherent component needs.

In order to address the network bandwidth requirements arising from the 1.5 times per year growth in internet traffic, carriers are increasingly moving towards coherent 100G transport systems. Coherent technology delivers the scalability and flexibility needed for transmitting bandwidth more cost-efficiently over fiber optic networks. Having achieved technical feasibility, the 100G DWDM systems are on the verge of volume deployment. The Digital Signal Processing (DSP) ASSP (Application Specific Standard Product) plays a very important role in 100G deployments as it provides Chromatic Dispersion (CD) compensation and Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) compensation without using expensive optical devices. Moreover, the Soft-Decision (SD) Forward Error Correction (FEC), which is included in the ASIC, improves the Optical Signal-to-Noise Ratio (OSNR) margin making the 100G systems backward compatible with existing 10G/40G systems. In order to be first to the market, some system vendors are developing in-house ASICs, which are limited to their internal use; these chipsare not expected to be readily available in the industry. While this strategy is helpful in early deployments, availability of DSP-ASSPs in the open market is highly desirable for wide scale adoptability and rapid deployment of 100G.

NEL is supplying the 100G coherent ASSP to the industry including many worldwide module and system vendors. This will enable the carriers to select interoperable equipment from multiple system vendors. The NEL-ASSP incorporates the results of "R&D on High Speed Optical Transport System Technologies" supported by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan. Multiple vendors have already adopted the NEL DSP-ASSP as announced in the recent press releases from Fujitsu Optical Components (FOC), Opnext , Oclaro and NEC. [1-4]

The issue of high power dissipation from the DSP-ASSP in the line-side transponder module was highlighted in a recent report: "100 Gigabit: An operator view - Gazettabyte, October 25, 2011" [5], where Steven Gringeri of Verizon states: "I think you can fit the optics in but I'm very concerned about the power consumption of the DSP - these DSPs are 50 to 80W in many current designs,".

"Today, NEL announced that it is starting shipments of NLD0629BCB a lower power version of the DSP-ASSP having digital core-logic power dissipation of less than 40W, which is about 50% power savings compared to available industry solutions, enabling OEMs to maximize the number of 100G slots per system", said Dr. Hibino, Vice-President Sales for NEL. The chip will support a full-duplex transceiver with unprecedented integration, combining a DSP with advanced modulation (Dual Polarization QPSK), analog to digital converter (ADC), and SFI-S/OTN-MLD(OTL4.10) client side interface. The chip has industry-leading chromatic dispersion tolerance of +/-40,000ps/nm and polarization mode dispersion tolerance of 100ps.

Availability of NEL's ASSP chip is truly a game changer for the industry as it not only enables lower cost 100G solutions for the long haul systems, commensurate with the OIF power dissipation guidelines, but it also makes possible the next generation modules and cards for the metro networks enabling the economies of scale needed for the mass deployment of 100G. Having multiple sourced, interoperable, optical transceivers will greatly improve the health of the supply chain for 100G coherent DWDM systems.

"This lower power DSP contributes to an energy efficient eco-system and leads to improved space efficiency" said Dr. Tomizawa, Senior Research Engineer for NTT.

The results of a successful interoperability demonstration were reported at the Photonic Internet Forum (PIF) Workshop held on 22nd February 2012 [6]. The tests were carried out jointly by 2 module vendors [1,2], and a system vendor[4]. The detail result will be shown at the upcoming Optical Fiber Communications Conference (OFC) in Los Angeles from March 4-8, 2012, market watch and an invited oral presentations of Dr. Tomizawa (NTT).

NEL will present results of the low power ASSP interoperability testing at the upcoming OFC 2012. The presentation will be accessible by invitation only.

Reference

  1. http://jp.fujitsu.com/group/foc/news/110915.html
  2. http://investor.opnext.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=606156
  3. http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=214770
  4. http://www.nec.co.jp/press/ja/1107/2501.html
  5. http://www.gazettabyte.com/home/2011/10/25/100-gigabit-an-operator-view.html
  6. http://www.scat.or.jp/photonic/english/activity/2011act_index.html#standard
Contact Information:

Peggy Barham
NTT Electronics America Corporation
e-mail : barham@nel-america.com

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