News Article
OIF Projects To Shrink Tunable Laser Assembly
The new uITLA project will propose changes to the assembly electrical interfaces, optical specifications, and mechanical specifications of tuneable lasers.
The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) members started two projects at their third quarter meeting. The first provides a specification for a micro-integrable tunable laser assembly (uITLA). The new form factor for tunable lasers is needed as the industry moves to an XFP form factor with reduced power dissipation.
The second newly created project addresses OSS Control Plane Management. Both of these projects will provide equipment vendors and carriers with important tools for bringing products to market and deploying control plane technology.
Dana Cooperson, Practice Leader for Network Infrastructure at analyst firm Ovum, spoke to 115 OIF members at their quarterly meeting about the key technology themes and challenges that factor into the evolution to the next generation, converged packet-optical network. She cited the widely adopted ‘100G Framework’ as “one key example of how the OIF helps accelerate the technology adoption cycle. The OIF will continue to play a critical role in increasing network and market efficiency.”
The new uITLA project shall propose changes to the assembly electrical interfaces, optical specifications, and mechanical specifications. The uITLA implementation agreement (IA) will provide an alternative laser solution for ITLA customers contemplating the integration of a specific vendor “gold box” laser on the host PCB due to space constraints. A greater than 2X reduction in the base plate area of the uITLA relative to the ITLA-MSA-1.2 IA is desired.
The new OSS Control Plane Management project output will be a white paper or framework document that addresses the OSS Control Plane challenges associated with Optical Transport Evolution. As the networks evolve from TDM to Packet and to MPLS-based Transport, there will be additional challenges associated with OSS integration and management of control plane-initiated services spanning multiple layers (TDM OTN and SONET, Photonic and MPLS).
Adding to the OSS challenges are the operational challenges associated with these converged networks. This new project will address these OSS challenges in operationalizing the TDM control plane including multilayer TDM CP (SONET/SDH, OTN).
Launched in 1998, the OIF unites representatives from data and optical networking disciplines, including many of the world's leading carriers, component manufacturers, and system vendors. The OIF promotes the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services through the creation of Implementation Agreements (IAs) for optical, interconnect, network processing, component, and networking systems technologies.
