The worldwide network traffic is expanding due to the rapid expansion of mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, and other technologies. Major switch vendors in the market have started to launch 400G and even 800G switches with ultra-high speed, which often have different 400G ports and thus support other 400G optical transceivers. So, do you know these 400G optical transceivers? This beginner’s guide covers the common 400G optical transceiver categories and applications, hope it will help you to understand them.
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400G optical transceiver, also called 400G optics, or 400G optical module, is an optical module that transmits or receives data at 400Gbps speed. A single 400G port on a switch often consists of 4 x 100G, 8 x 50G, or 16 x 25G lanes, using different encoding schemes to aggregate the data rate. Correspondingly, there are many categories of 400G optics for various applications.
In the below section, let us explore the main types of 400G optical transceivers.
Transceiver Form Factor (Source: Ethernet Alliance)OSFP stands for Octal Small Formfactor Pluggable, and it is a new interface standard that is incompatible with existing optoelectronic interfaces. It is significantly more prominent than the QSFP-DD and necessitates more PCB space., with dimensions of 100.4*22.58*13mm. The electrical interface differs from QSFP-DD in that it contains a row at the top and bottom.
400G OSFP TransceiverQSFP-DD is an abbreviation for Quad Small Form Factor Pluggable-Double Density. This approach is an extension of the QSFP interface, adding one extra row to the original 4-channel interface and expanding it to 8 channels (the so-called double density). One of the QSFP-DD’s advantages is compatibility with the QSFP solution. The original QSFP28 module can still be used by just inserting another module.
The full name of CFP8 is Eight-channel Form Factor Pluggable. CFP8 supports eight channels (8x50G) with data rates of 400Gbps. The CFP8’s size is much larger than that of QSFP-DD or OSFP, at 102mm x 40mm x 9.5mm, which is about the size of a credit card.
The CDFP stands for 400 Gigabit Ethernet Form Factor Pluggable and is intended to deliver a low-cost, high-density 400 Gigabit Ethernet solution. It has a front panel, is hot-pluggable, has 16 channels, and a 400 Gbps module. CDFP will be a short-reach module that supports four Terabit line cards. In terms of interface, it is pretty similar to the QSFP and CXP modules.
The tiny CDFP module, with its high port density, is particularly suited for low-power applications in the data center, such as copper, VCSEL, or Silicon Photonics (SiP) technologies. CDFP modules are unsuitable for high-power applications requiring connectivity to be extended outside the data center.
COBO standards consortium for On-Board Optics. Unlike the pluggable optics form factor, COBO is a non-pluggable form factor for onboard optics. Leading data center equipment providers developed the COBO standard to improve port density and scalability of data center equipment.
Although 100G optical modules have entered the market, 400G optical modules will push the technology to a greater degree of development as bandwidth, port density, and system energy consumption continues to rise.
Compared to 100G optical modules, the debut of 400G optical modules will usher in a new age of optical communication. Optical communication is evolving from single-carrier modulated coherent detection in low-cost optical modules to multi-carrier polarization multiplexing applications.
Photonic and electrical integration and ADC/DSP technologies will be critical to commercializing 400G optical communication modules and systems. With the urgent requirement for Ethernet standards, the demand for optical parallelization will significantly aid the development of photonic integration technologies.
As we all know, 100G technology products have developed; however, 400G is currently a hot topic of debate, and the industry is particularly concerned about the progress of 400G optical modules. The development and mass manufacture of 400G optical modules is now proceeding at a reasonable pace. In today’s market, demand for bandwidth in mega data centers is increasing, and 400G optical communication modules have emerged as the most excellent option for improving system performance and lowering bandwidth costs. Introducing 5G networks will also help drive the value of the 400G optical module market.
The 400G optical module is a hot topic in the industry, and its development prospects are vast. In the future, 400G optical modules will bring us a better experience in terms of data transmission speed and energy consumption. What do you think about the future of 400G optical modules? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
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