Infinera demos 400 Gb/s circuit

Infinera, an optical networking company out of Sunnyvale, Calif., announced Tuesday it has demonstrated working 400 Gb/s photonic integrated circuits and said these chips would save 80 percent in power consumption over competitors. The chips will operate over Infinera's ILS2 line system with 25 GHz channel spacing, which will double the spectral density of competing systems, according to the company.

The 400 Gb/s PIC also integrates more than 300 optical functions, that up until now, were spread out among dozens of optical component packages. Infinera expects the chip to be the "heart of the next generation of Infinera platforms," as it is encoded through polarization-multiplexed differential quadrature phase-shift keying (PM-DQPSK), which will consume less power, have greater spectral efficiency, and improved optical reach, among other features. The next-generation networks will allow network operators to scale total fiber capacity to 6.4Tb/s, twice what is possible with current 40G WDM-PON systems, according to Infinera.

If Infinera can meet its targets for field tests and integration of the 400 Gb/s PICs, it will enable industry-leading power consumption and network capacity within the network core. 

For more:
- see the company's press release here 

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