Visitors to this year’s OFC Conference and Exhibition in San Diego were able to see, for the first time, a collection of optical module solutions for 5G wireless networks from Finisar.
Building on the success of the company’s 10G tunable Bidi SFP+ transceiver, Finisar demonstrated its next-generation 25G tunable Bidi technology in an SFP28 form factor. This technology is believed to be a key building block for deploying these transceivers and is designed to enable cost-effective next generation 5G wireless build-outs while also providing significantly more data capacity per fibre than other 25G-based optical architectures.
The Bidi technology will also incorporate Finisar transceiver features, such as T2DOC and Flextune. This will enable transceiver-to-transceiver communications and self-wavelength tuning of remote modules during commissioning without host interaction, so field installation and remote maintenance are simplified and operational expenses are lowered.
In addition, a new, cost-optimised 25G SFP28 module for front-haul applications in 5G wireless networks was unveiled, which uses a Fabry-Perot (FP) laser. Most single-mode 25G optical modules rely on more costly distributed feedback (DFB) lasers to reach the 10km distances set by the IEEE standard. Finisar’s demonstration was to show that low-cost FP lasers running at 25G data rates can support not only the 300m of reach required by the majority of 5G front-haul deployments, but also exceptional cases of 1km spans.
During the event, Finisar was a participant in interoperability demonstrations at both Ethernet Alliance and OIF booths, where it showed 400G LR8 QSFP-DD and CFP8 modules as well as 100G FR, CWDM4 and LR4 QSFP28 modules (Ethernet Alliance) multiple 100G and 400G transceivers (OIF).