Yesterday, the Open Eye Consortium announced the establishment of its Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) to standardize advanced specifications for optical modules. These specifications are for lower latency, efficient and lower cost optical modules that target 50Gbps, 100Gbps, 200Gbps, and up to 400Gbps optical modules for datacenter interconnects over single-mode and multimode fiber.
The formation of the Open Eye MSA was initiated by MACOM and Semtech Corporation with 19 current members in Promoter and Contributing membership classes. The initial specification release of this MSA is planned for Fall 2019 followed by product availability later in the year.
Open Eye MSA aims towards the adoption of PAM-4 optical interconnects scaling to 50Gbps, 100Gbps, 200Gbps, and 400Gbps by expanding the existing standards. This will help optical module implementations use less complex, lower cost, lower power, and optimized clock and data recovery (CDR).
The Open Eye MSA is investing in the development of an industry-standard optical interconnect that would bring interoperability among a broad group of industry-leading technology providers, including providers of lasers, electronics, and optical components. MSA consortium’s approach enables users to scale to next-generation baud rates.
Dale Murray, Principal Analyst at LightCounting, said, “LightCounting forecasts that sales of next-generation Ethernet products will exceed $500 million in 2020. However, this is only possible if suppliers can meet customer requirements for cost and power consumption. The new Open Eye MSA addresses both of these critical requirements. Having low latency is an extra bonus that HPC and AI applications will benefit from.”
The initial Open Eye MSA specification will be focused on 53Gbps per lane PAM-4 solutions for 50G SFP, 100G DSFP, 100G SFP-DD, 200G QSFP, and 400G QSFP-DD and OSFP single-mode modules. The subsequent specifications will aim at multimode and 100Gbps per lane applications.
David (Chan Chih) Chen, AVP, Strategic Marketing for Transceiver, AOI, said, “Through its participation in the Open Eye MSA, AOI is leveraging our laser and optical module technology to deliver benefits of low cost, high-speed connectivity to next-generation data centers.”
Jeffery Maki, Distinguished Engineer II, Juniper Networks, said, “As a leader in switching, routing and optical interconnects, Juniper Networks has a unique perspective into the technology and market dynamics affecting enterprise, cloud and service provider data centers, and the Open Eye MSA provides a forum to apply our insight and expertise on the pathway to 200G and faster connectivity speeds.”
To know more about this news, check out, Open Eye MSA’s page.
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