Oclaro enters volume production of 100G ER4-Lite QSFP28 transceivers supporting up to 40km reach

Oclaro Inc of San Jose, CA, USA (which provides components, modules and subsystems for optical communications) has begun volume production of 100G 40km pluggable solutions in compact QSFP28 transceivers that support the new ER4-Lite specification. With their ability to reach 40km while maintaining low power and high faceplate density, the new ER4-Lite QSFP28 transceivers enable customers in the metro edge and access networks to deploy high-speed 100G networks without the use of optical amplifiers, according to the firm.

“Achieving volume production of these critical 100G transceivers is an important milestonee for our layer 2 switch, core router and optical transport system equipment manufacturers transitioning from 10G to 100G solutions,” says Yves LeMaitre, president of Oclaro’s Optical Connectivity business. “With the addition of an ER4-Lite solution to our growing 100G portfolio, Oclaro now has product offerings ranging from 2km and 10km up to 40km. This allows tremendous flexibility for distributed data centers and metro optical network installations,” he adds.

The QSFP28 ER4-Lite complements Oclaro’s ER4-Lite CFP2 transceiver module, which has been shipping in volume since 2015. To develop this transceiver, the firm leveraged its 28G electro-absorption modulated laser (EML) that is proven in its CFPx and QSFP28 LR4 product families. The ER4-Lite QSFP28 supports both 100GbE and OTU4 applications and supports up to 40km with forward error correction (FEC), up to 25km without FEC, and will interoperate with existing ER4 solutions in the field up to 25km.

The new ER4-Lite QSFP28 is compliant to the newly introduced ITU-T standard G.959.1 4L1-9D1F and the new 4WDM-40 specification released in July by the 4WDM MSA Group for 100GbE applications.