Inphi Corporation has started sampling its Canopus coherent Digital Signal Processor (DSP), reportedly the industry’s first merchant 7nm coherent DSP. Canopus provides low power and high density QSFP-DD, OSFP and CFP2-DCO coherent pluggable modules for cloud and telecom customers, delivering the performance required for metro and long-haul networks. The DSP enables switches and routers to offer the same port density of coherent interfaces as client ports with capacities of up to 14.4 Tb/s per rack unit (RU), representing a 3x increase over current coherent port densities.
By enabling the use of high-speed coherent pluggables, the DSP eliminates the need for dedicated cloud transport boxes for DCI networks. According to the company, it reduces cost by more than 50% and power dissipation by 75%.
“This chip enables high-density coherent technology to reside in the pluggable form factor,” said Nariman Yousefi, Senior Vice President, Coherent DSP, during a recent interview with FierceElectronics. “The industry has been looking for this technology to become a reality, it has been widely sought after.”
Canopus’ high-performance DSP architecture implements probabilistic shaping, a technique that maximizes data rate at longer fiber distances and delivers lower deployment cost per bit. For the first time, coherent pluggables are powered with probabilistic shaping technology. The low power implementation in 7-nm silicon geometry delivers reduced power dissipation and size as compared to the current-generation coherent DSPs. Additionally, Canopus’ design allows operators the flexibility to select either ZR or high-performance modes, enabling them to cover a wide range of network applications.
Canopus builds upon the extensive deployed base of Inphi’s M200 coherent DSP. This continuity enables OEMs and operators interoperability across generations of coherent solutions for 100G and 200G deployments to drive a seamless transition to 400G. Canopus supports 400G ZR, which is broadly supported by cloud operators, service providers and OEMs and is being standardized in OIF facilitating multi-vendor interoperability up to 120-km span.
“The Canopus coherent DSP is ushering a new industry wide ecosystem, pluggability, and era of interoperability. Canopus increases density while slashing both power dissipation and the cost per bit to unprecedented levels,” added Yousefi. “The sampling of the Canopus DSP transforms coherent pluggable optics to high-performance 100/200/300/400G, a true revolutionary step and the inflection point in the industry.”
According to the company, several long-haul network providers have already expressed interest in coherent pluggable modules. This includes Arista Networks and Juniper.
Inphi is now sampling its multi-rate 100/200/300/400G 7nm Coherent DSP to qualified customers. The DSP is expected to be more widely available in the second half of 2020.