OIF targets high baud rate coherence and 400ZR reuse to release new projects

8/14/2019, OIF released two new results at the latest Q319 Technology and MA&E Committee meeting in Montreal, Canada. One of the results, the high baud rate coherent drive modulator, the second, a technical white paper on low-rate service multiplexing based on FlexE and 400ZR.

Andrew Schmitt, founder and principal analyst of Cignal AI, a market research firm, briefly reviewed the emerging pluggable coherent optical module technologies and market opportunities for OIF members. He pointed out that "the two results of this meeting show that OIF is not lying on the successful standardization of 400ZR. With the increase in interest in pluggable coherent solutions, it is good to see OIF begin to seek from relevant network operators. Feedback on the next generation of standards."

The high-baud rate coherent drive modulator project, one of the two outcomes of the OIF Montreal conference, will support a new version of the coherent drive modulator that supports at least 96 Gbaud, single optical carrier rate over 400 Gbps, and low modem implementation cost. The transmission rate and longer transmission distance further optimize network performance. This will also be the new version of the IA that specifies the high-bandwidth coherent drive modulator HB-CDM released last year.

The technical white paper on low-rate service multiplexing based on FlexE and 400ZR is clear about how to use 400ZR in the reuse scenario, further eliminating the uncertainty. Currently, many network operators want to use the technology to support, for example, 4x100GE to 400ZR coherence. This technical white paper is used to educate the market how FlexE can be used to aggregate low-rate Ethernet services to the 400ZR.