Luxtera at OFC 2017 announced the sampling of its 100G-CWDM2 QSFP optical transceiver module. Leveraging the company’s latest silicon photonics chipset, the LUX45202 optical transceiver has been developed to target 100G build outs for cloud, enterprise, and high performance computing end users.

The LUX45202 offers customers superior performance and reliability, at a price point that makes it the leading 100G duplex solution on the market. These benefits are realised by implementing PAM-4 modulation, which allows the LUX45202 to accomplish with two lasers what today’s solutions require four lasers to achieve.

“Cisco is always looking for the best possible optics for use in its platforms, and silicon photonics has long been seen as a critical element for 100G data centre systems,” said Bill Gartner, VP and GM at Cisco. “Cisco is excited to see Luxtera delivering high-density, low-cost 100G data centre solutions offering disruptive opportunities for our cloud and enterprise customers.”

“Innovation is what drives us at Luxtera. We were the first company to deliver a silicon photonic transceiver to the market. Now, we are proud to continue our silicon photonics industry leadership by being the first to announce a 100G-CWDM2 duplex QSFP optical module solution,” said Greg Young, President and CEO of Luxtera.

“Not only does this product provide a competitive solution for 100G networking today, but by successfully integrating wave-division multiplexing and PAM-4 modulation into our Silicon Photonics chipset it puts into practice key technical developments that will drive Luxtera towards 400G optics and beyond.”

With this addition to its product portfolio, Luxtera continues its Silicon Photonics leadership in offering customers performance driven and cost-effective optical networking solutions for data centre applications.

The key features of the LUX45202 100Gb optical transceiver include: a QSFP28 compliant module form-factor, multirate: 10.3125, 20.625, or 25.78125 Gbps per electrical channel, CWDM2 performance meaning it is a reliable long-wave solution with a reach of over 2000 m, for a power demand of less than 3.5 W.

The LUX45202 100G-Duplex CWDM2 optical transceiver module is sampling now to select customers, with volume production expected to begin in the second half of 2017.