Inphi launches COLORZ-Lite shorter-reach 20km 100G DWDM QSFP28 modules for campus and data-center interconnects

Inphi Corp of Santa Clara, CA, USA (a provider of high-speed mixed-signal ICs for communications, computing and data-center markets) has expanded its COLORZ portfolio with COLORZ-Lite: 100G DWDM in QSFP28 form factor for campus and data-center interconnects (DCI).

Launched at the Optical Fiber Communications (OFC 2016) trade show, COLORZ is claimed to be the first silicon photonics 100G PAM4 (4-level pulse amplitude modulation) platform solution for 80km DWDM DCI. The addition of COLORZ-Lite now offers campus and data centers a cost-optimized solution for shorter distances up to 20km. Inphi is collaborating with optoelectronic component maker II-VI Inc of Saxonburg, PA, USA to demonstrate COLORZ-Lite and II-VI’s Optical Line Subsystem, showcasing a 20km campus DWDM link in its booth #337 at the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC 2017) in Gothenburg, Sweden (18-20 September).

Cloud traffic continues to drive data-center growth, and machine-to-machine communication is increasing aggregate traffic at an even faster pace. Applications such as network virtualization are also driving the need for low-latency requirements and pushing the need for data to be stored closer to end users. With the need to support these growing bandwidth requirements, and to reduce the bottlenecks caused by fiber exhaust, the industry requires a low-cost and high-bandwidth inter-operable solution between network elements, says Inphi. Designed for campus and data-center networks ranging up to 20km, COLORZ-Lite DWDM in QSFP28 form factor is a cost-optimized alternative solution to grey optics such as LR4, eLR4 and ER4 that is said to alleviate the fiber shortage bottlenecks and enables enterprise and cloud operators to scale their network.

“The ability to provide high-bandwidth DWDM connectivity across data centers in a campus environment enables cloud operators to rapidly scale their capacity,” comments Timothy Doiron, principal analyst, Intelligent Networking practice, at ACG Research. “In a recent study, we concluded that COLORZ-Lite lowered the total cost of ownership by up to 68% in a distributed campus versus grey optics when considering the cost of leased fiber.”

Leveraging its PAM digital signal processing (DSP) technology, linear drivers and transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs), Inphi has introduced a new set of 100G-capable optics optimized for the QSFP28 hot-pluggable form factor. COLORZ-Lite hot-swappable devices plug into any QSFP28 100G Ethernet port of any standard switch or router. COLORZ-Lite can support up to 40 DWDM channels on a single fiber, giving network operators a 40x increase in fiber utilization or spectral efficiency (4Tb/s versus 100Gb/s in a single fiber pair).

“COLORZ-Lite brings flexibility and ease of service delivery to cloud network operators constrained by fiber exhaust or that require extended link reaches up to 20km,” says Loi Nguyen, Inphi’s founder & senior VP, Optical Interconnect. “COLORZ-Lite 100G QSFP28 pluggable modules, combined with II-VI’s cost-optimized optical line subsystem, enables cloud operators to scale their networks, reduce costs and increase their ease of deployment.”