OREANDA-NEWS. NTT Electronics (NEL), the leading supplier of 100G coherent Digital Signal Processing (DSP) ASSP's to a variety of system/module manufacturers worldwide, and Acacia Communications, the leader in delivering intelligent transceiver modules for ultra-high speed fiber optic transmission to the telecommunications infrastructure industry, announced today that they have completed verification of an interoperability mode of operation between their next-generation Coherent Digital Signal Processing ASIC's.

"Carriers and service providers require cost-effective pluggable transceivers even beyond the Ethernet reach (~30km) where de-facto 10GBASE-ZR is being used today," said Haruhiko Ichino, NEL Vice President and General Manager of Electronics Device & Systems. "The similar interoperability mode of operation at 100Gb/s by using the established modulation format DP-QPSK and the standard Forward Error Correction GFEC, is indispensable for emerging digital coherent technologies to penetrate new markets including shorter-reach pluggable applications."

"The successful interoperability of the two market-leading Coherent Digital Signal Processing ASIC's provides optimal flexibility to service providers as they expand their networks," said Acacia Co-Founder and Director of DSP & Optics, Christian Rasmussen. "NEL and Acacia have both independently established significant market momentum in the fast-growing long-haul coherent 100G market. Service providers and equipment suppliers have encouraged Acacia and NEL to work in closer collaboration to drive standards and increase the level of interoperability. Acacia is delighted to have worked with NEL to collaborate in this groundbreaking effort to meet customers' 100G product expectations."

"100G coherent application is to be extended from purely long-haul to metro to even short-reach applications, where the pluggable optical transceiver is attracting solution for those new applications," said a representative of Deutsche Telekom AG (DTAG). "Because pluggable modules should be freely replaceable, DTAG, as a carrier, is actively proposing to standardization bodies interoperable 100G coherent optics together with major world-wide system vendors. This announcement by NEL and Acacia does match our requirement, and we strongly support this activity. Continuously DTAG will propose standardization of the simple & mature modulation format (such as QPSK-base), and Enhanced Forward Error Correction (EFEC) for this interoperability."

"Optical technology solutions like 100G are helping us continue to evolve and scale our network to support the next generation of high bandwidth services in an efficient and cost effective way," said Shamim Akhtar, Distinguished Architect at Comcast. "100G Multi-Vendor line side interoperability is important because it pushes vendors to be innovative and lets us use the optical and fiber infrastructure we've already built to flexibly and cost effectively install much more networking capacity."

"From the viewpoint of a network operator using 100G as well as a technology provider of 100G coherent solution, we, NTT, are happy to see this interoperability milestone," said Masahito Tomizawa, an executive manager of NTT Network Innovation Labs. "In the past, using a single-source NEL's DSPs, we confirmed interoperability between multiple transceiver vendors without any degradation among multiple optical components if the format is DP-QPSK. Today, the interoperability is extended even between the DSPs from different suppliers, which shows the great availability of interoperable 100G coherent solutions. Toward more efficient transmission, our effort will continue to the higher-level modulation format, in the future."

NEL's 100G coherent DSP has been a game changer for the industry as the only ASSP solution available in the market. In March the company announced to collaborate with Broadcom on next-generation low-power DSP that allows its use within a family of C form-factor pluggable (CFP) modules.

Acacia's industry-leading 100G coherent transceiver modules provide unmatched optical performance for carriers, data center operators, cable operators and service providers at the lowest overall cost. The company recently announced a USD 20 million expansion round of funding and that it had significantly expanded its worldwide headquarters in Maynard, MA.