Acacia Communications to demonstrate BGA Photonic Integrated Circuit
Improved RF interface supports 1.2 Tbps coherent solution
Acacia Communications, a provider of high-speed coherent optical interconnect products, has announced that it will be demonstrating a ball grid array (BGA) photonic integrated circuit (PIC) for coherent applications during the OFC, taking place 19 - 23 March 2017 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. In its demonstration, Acacia Communications will showcase BGA packaging technology as a means of leveraging the benefits of their silicon photonics by offering low-cost packages and standard electronics surface mount technology.
"We have long viewed the transition to low-cost packaging and standard interfacing as an important next step to further the benefits of our silicon photonics technology," stated Chris Doerr, Associate Vice President of Integrated Photonics at Acacia Communications. "With this technical achievement, we continue to execute on our vision to siliconise the optical interconnect, which requires moving from specialised materials that require custom process development to high volume silicon processes and mainstream assembly techniques."
To help maximise the amount of data transmitted by each coherent interface and improve cost efficiency, Acacia Communications' next generation Pico digital signal processor (DSP) will support transmission speeds of up to 1.2 Tbps with two carriers of 600 Gbps each using 64QAM modulation format at approximately 64 Gbaud. For these data rates, traditional packaging technology can limit performance of the interface between the DSP and optics. BGA packages address this challenge by eliminating additional connectors and optical package leads, improving bandwidth and signal integrity. This is a critical step toward Acacia Communications' vision of integrating the DSP and optics in a single package.
"Our relationship with Acacia is one founded on a shared drive to innovate. Both of our teams are continually pushing and seeking ways to help our customers achieve their goals," said Christoph Glingener, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operating Officer at ADVA Optical Networking. "Acacia's 1.2 Tbps solution is the latest example of this and we strongly believe that it will be significantly beneficial to our customers in the metro Data Center Interconnect market."
Acacia Communications' 1.2 Tbps Pico DSP is based on 16nm CMOS technology and offers a wide range of modulation formats and data rates. Acacia Communications' dual core Pico DSP will feature an internal crossbar switch allowing the flexibility to support a wide range of 100G and 400G client interfaces.
