Four Mainstream Applications of 100G and Their Features

At present, the application and technology of 100G have always been the focus of the industry, and the market of 100G can not be developed in the real sense due to some factors such as the cost in tech, efficiency, and market demands. However, with the gradual stabilization of 40G, the market of 100G has been slowly opened. Now there are many kinds of interface technology about 100G applications in the market. And then in this article, there will be an introduction to four mainstream applications of 100G and their features.

1. QSFP28 100G SR4 Optical Transceiver and Its Features

The wavelength of QSFP28 SR4 is 850nm, and the interface type is 12-fibers MPO (Intermediate 4-fibers channel is not activated). It is with 4 channels combined with 8-fibers multimode fiber, each channel supporting 25G to achieve 100G rate.

Features: the interface, same as that of QSFP-40G-SR4, can be directly upgraded from 40G  to 100G. The optical module is usually connected with OM3 and OM4 multimode fiber, respectively to support the transmission distance of 70 meters and 100 meters (the recently-published technology is possible to support  transmission distance of 200 meters via OM4 optic fiber).

2. QSFP28 100G PSM4 Optical Transceiver and Its Features

QSFP28 PSM4 transmission mode is similar to that of QSFP28 100G SR4. Each channel supports 25G in 4 channels. This optical module uses single-mode optic fiber as the transmission media and the wavelength is 1310nm.

Features: adopting the QSFP28 port, able to reach transmission distance of 500ms via the single mode optic fiber, which makes it have a certain advantage in the market.

3. QSFP28 100G CWDM4 Optical Transceiver and Its Features

The coarse wavelength division multiplexing technology and LC duplex interface are used with single-mode fiber, by which the maximum transmission distance can reach 2km. Its form factor is QSFP28. This optical module is cheaper than the traditional single-mode optical module.

Features: the coarse wavelength division multiplexing technology based on single-mode fiber has been relatively mature, but QSFP28 CWDM4 has not been formally approved by the IEEE standard group. Currently, the technology standard is unified and promoted by CWDM4 MSA.

4. QSFP28 100G SWDM4 Optical Transceiver and Its Features

SWDM(Short Wavelength Division Multiplexing)refers to the short wavelength division multiplexing technology that can transmit 4 bands of optical signals in multi-mode optical fiber with one fiber. The windows of these 4 bands are respectively 850nm, 880nm, 910nm and 940nm. The principle of this technology is similar to that of CWDM on single mode. But it is the first time that SWDM has applied WDM(Wavelength Division Multiplexing)technology to the short band of multimode optic fiber.

Features: 100GBase-SWDM4 optical module uses a multi-mode duplex LC interface. It just needs optic fiber with 2-fibers. It usually adopts OM4 optic fiber, the transmission distance can reach above 100m. If it uses WBMMF(WideBand Multi-Mode Fiber）, the transmission distance can reach 300m. Compared with SR4, SWDM4 requires only 25% of optic fibers.

In the current situation, the application mode of 100G is with at least 10 types. And the above-mentioned four types of interface technologies focus on that of data center applications. For more information about it, welcome to visit Gigalight official website(www.gigaligt.com).

About Gigalight:
Gigalight is a design innovator in global optical interconnect field. A series of optical interconnect products include: optical transceivers, passive optical components, active optical cables, GIGAC MTP/MPO cabling, cloud programmers & checkers, etc. Three applications are mainly covered: Data Center & Cloud Computing, MAN & Broadcast Video, and Mobile Network & 5G Optical Transmission. Gigalight takes advantage of its exclusive design to provide clients with one-stop optical network devices and cost-effective products.

200G&400G: Which One Will Be the Rising Star in the Market after 100G optics?

With the rapid development of optical communication and Internet in recent years, users' demand for the network has also surged, which leads to the rapid growth of Telecom backbone traffic at a speed of 50% to 80% per year. In order to follow the development trend of 10G-40G-100G/10G-25G-100G in the optical communication market, 100G optical module arises with the trend and rises rapidly in the market. It plays a very important role in building 100G network system.

Since the advent of 100G network, the industry alliance institutions such as the IEEE, Multi Source Agreement(MSA) have formulated multiple standards for the 100G optical transceiver.

According to the differences of form factor, 100G optical transceivers can be divided into CFP/CFP2/CFP4, CXP and QSFP28 optics. The detailed parameters are shown as below:

Standard	Connector &Fiber Type	Transmission Distance
100GBASE-SR10	24 fiber MPO, parallel multimode fiber, with 10 transmitting ports and 10 receiving ports,850mn	OM3,100m OM4,150m
100GBASE-SR4	12 fiber MPO, parallel multimode fiber, with 4 transmitting ports and 4 receiving ports,850mn	OM4 100m
100GBASE-LR4	duplex LC, single mode fiber,1310mn,4x25G WDM	10km
100GBASE-ER4	12 fiber MPO, parallel multimode fiber, with 4 transmitting ports and 4 receiving ports,850mn	40km
100G PSM4	12 fiber MPO, parallel single mode fiber, with 4 transmitting ports and 4 receiving ports,1310mn	500m
100G CWDM4	duplex LC, single mode fiber,1271-1331mn,4x25GCWDM	2km
100G SWDM4	Duplex LC, multimode fiber,850-950mn,4x25G SWDM,	OM3,TBO WBMMF,4TBD
100G CLR4	duplex LC, single mode fiber,1271-1331mn,4x25G CWDM	2km

Thereinto, the QSFP28 optical module has the same design concept as the QSFP optical module. It is with four transmitting and receiving ports; the transmission rate of each channel reach up to 28Gbps. In addition, QSFP28 optic fiber transceiver is with these advantages such as small size, power consumption(no more than 3.5W). Currently, mainstream packaging of 100G optical module is paid more attention such as 100G QSFP28 optical module.

At the same time that 100G optical transceivers achieve 100G optical transmission, a series of major technological changes happen, including polarization multiplexing phase modulation technology, the third generation super-strong error correction coding technology of digital coherent receiving technology, etc. On account that these techs adapt to the changes of market trends, they become the mainstream of market.

Meanwhile, the new applications, such as high-definition video 4K, live broadcast, VR etc, promote the fast growth of network traffic. Simultaneously, these emerging applications such as cloud computing, IaaS services, big data, etc, also raise higher requirements for data transmission in the interior of data center. These  promote the continuous development of 100G optical module market.

Although 100G optical module has become the market mainstream, and the requirements for bandwidth, port density, power   consumption of system are continuously improved, which further pushes the development of technology toward the system of 200G/400G/higher rate.

With the continuous revision of 200G/400G standard, the standard of 200G/400G optical module has always been synchronized. At present, there have been manufacturers pushed out module samples for advertisement. In fact, for the next-stage development, the adoption of 200G or 400G has always been the controversial object in the industry. It is believed that the competition among optical transceivers will be more  intense when it is in the commercial phase.

The main type of 400G optical module includes CDFP, CFP8, QSFP-DD and OSFP. CDFP is the earliest type of 400G optical module, which has already been in version 3.0 from 2014 to now. CFP8 is a new member of the CFP family after CFP4, which is with larger size. QSFP-DD is a popular type at present; in addition that its length is slightly longer, it is basically same as QSFP28.

OSFP is a new type of 400G optical module. It is with eight high-speed electrical channels; it still supports 32 OSFP ports in the front panel per 1U, and 12.8Tbps can be available per 1U. With the integrated radiator, the heat dissipation performance can be greatly improved, and the module with 15W power can be realized in the switch chassis with the traditional air flow.

Compared with 100G, the 400G system can further enhance the network capacity on the basis of 100G and reduce the transmission cost per bit. Because in the aspects of 40G/100G products, the four channel parallel architecture are taken as the most cost-effective high bandwidth optical packaging platform. It has been proven that whether 4x50Gx2 architecture or 4X100G architecture will also be most cost-effective in future.

Although the 400G module also supports the application of 200G, and the module type for the 200G application is MicroQSFP.

MicroQSFP is with 4 differential pairs in total; it can support the current 100G application. Compared with 100G QSFP28 optical transceiver, it is smaller in size but its panel density has increased by 33%. Thus, it will dominate in volume and panel density. In addition, it will achieve better cooling effect due to that it is with radiator.

With the rapid development of mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data and other technologies, the whole communication industry needs to upgrade the network to a higher level after 10G-40G-100G or 10G-25G-100G. For 200G/400G, which one will be the rising star after 100G? It is still hard to draw the conclusion. However, in terms of the current market situation and technological development, the 400G optical module is with more advantages.


Note: More article resources are at gigalight.com