
Coherent Optical Technology
Maximize the Capacity-Reach of Your DWDM Network
Leveraging sophisticated digital signal processors (DSPs) and advanced photonics, coherent optical technology has revolutionized DWDM transport, enabling wavelength speeds to go from 10 Gb/s in the pre-coherent era to 100 Gb/s and now 800 Gb/s with the latest embedded coherent optical engines, as well as 400 Gb/s with the latest coherent pluggables.
The addition of advanced features, such as soft-decision forward error correction (SD-FEC), Nyquist subcarriers, and probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS), has extended the reach of coherent optical wavelengths to thousands of kilometers, minimizing the need for signal regeneration. Coherent optical technology has also simplified DWDM network planning and deployment by removing the need for dispersion compensation modules (DCMs) and overcoming the limitations of polarization mode dispossession (PMD) thanks to dispersion compensation now performed digitally in the DSP. XR optics pluggables are now even leveraging digital subcarrier technology to enable point-to-multipoint coherent optical wavelengths.

Highlights

Scale wavelength and fiber capacity
Enable wavelength speeds of 100 Gb/s or higher, with the latest coherent pluggables capable of 400 Gb/s and the latest embedded optical engines now able to deliver 800 Gb/s, and scale extended C-band fiber capacity from 960 Gb/s (96 x 10 Gb/s) to 42.4 Tb/s (53 x 800 Gb/s). Future-proof your network with the option to double this capacity using C+L transmission.

Maximize wavelength reach and minimize regen
Extend wavelength reach to 10,000 km+ without the need for expensive OEO regeneration. Even at 800 Gb/s, reach of 950km+ is possible with Infinera’s ICE6 optical engine leveraging advanced features like second-generation Nyquist subcarriers and long-codeword PCS (LC-PCS).

Simplify your DWDM network
Streamline DWDM network planning and deployment by removing the need for DCMs that were required to mitigate chromatic dispersion in the pre-coherent (10Gb/s) era. This also removes the cost and latency of the DCMs.

Leverage point-to-multipoint
A recent Infinera innovation, XR optics, takes coherent technology beyond the constraints of point-to-point and into pluggable form factors, leveraging digital subcarrier technology to enable point-to-multipoint wavelengths with advanced system-level capabilities and TCO savings of up to 70%.

Blog
The Three Vectors of Coherent Evolution
To address a diverse set of requirements and applications, coherent optical transceivers are now evolving in line with three vectors: maximized performance and advanced optical features, minimized space and power, and the integration of system-level functions.
Featured Products

ICE6

ICE-X

GX Series
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Happy Birthday, Harry Nyquist
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