Acacia Demos 1.2 Tbps Module at OFC 2018
Acacia Communications demonstrated its new 1.2 Tbps coherent module at OFC 2018. The company said its new AC1200 module has been designed to offer flexible features to address a wide range of network requirements including those for Cloud/DCI, metro, long-haul, and submarine applications. The new module also provides advanced monitoring to enable intelligent networks and improved performance to reduce network operating costs.
While supporting transmission speeds of up to 1.2 Tbps, the module is also 40 percent smaller than the size of the 5x7-inch modules typically utilized to support transmission speeds of 400 Gbps today. The new device is based on Acacia's Pico digital signal processor (DSP) ASIC, which operates at 600 Gbps (Tx), using 64QAM modulation in the OFC demonstration; the modules utilizes two wavelengths that can be configured to support requirements from 100 Gbps to 600 Gbps capacity, each.
Acacia said its new AC1200 module supports a suite of advanced three-dimensional (3D) shaping features that may be optimized to enable performance approaching theoretical limits on a wide range of network configurations. 3D shaping allows fine-tune adjustment of the modulation characteristics to provide network operators with the flexibility to customize the AC1200 transmission to their network requirements. The key features enabling 3D-shaping include:
· Shaping of the constellation points' probability to optimize capacity using Acacia's patented Fractional QAM modulation;
· Shaping of the constellation points' location to optimize reach; and,
· Shaping of the spectral width to match the available channel passband by adapting the baud rate.
"With our AC1200, we continue to demonstrate our ability to provide our customers with innovative solutions," said Raj Shanmugaraj, President and Chief Executive Officer of Acacia Communications. "We believe that our AC1200 reduces the need for costly regeneration in long-haul networks, can adapt signal bandwidth to ROADM based metro networks and leverages 600 Gbps transmission to lower cost per bit in DCI networks."
Acacia's AC1200 module supports security encryption and a wide range of host interfaces designed to reduce or eliminate the need for costly external devices. The module features a software control interface that streamlines integration and allows customers to install and test.
Acacia recently shipped its first customer samples of the AC1200 and anticipates production to begin in the second half of 2018.
