Press release

Industry Leaders Form Open Eye MSA Consortium Targeting High Speed Optical Connectivity Applications

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The Open Eye Consortium today announced the establishment of its
Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) outlining its mission to standardize
advanced specifications for lower latency, more power efficient and
lower cost optical modules targeting 50Gbps, 100Gbps, 200Gbps, and up to
400Gbps optical modules for data center interconnects over single-mode
and multimode fiber.

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The MSA aims to accelerate the adoption of PAM-4 optical interconnects scaling to 50Gbps, 100Gbps, 2 ...

The MSA aims to accelerate the adoption of PAM-4 optical interconnects scaling to 50Gbps, 100Gbps, 200Gbps, and 400Gbps by expanding upon existing standards to enable optical module implementations using less complex, lower cost, lower power, and optimized clock and data recovery (CDR) based architectures in addition to existing digital signal processing (DSP) architectures. (Graphic: Business Wire)

The MSA aims to accelerate the adoption of PAM-4 optical interconnects
scaling to 50Gbps, 100Gbps, 200Gbps, and 400Gbps by expanding upon
existing standards to enable optical module implementations using less
complex, lower cost, lower power, and optimized clock and data recovery
(CDR) based architectures in addition to existing digital signal
processing (DSP) architectures.

Minimizing the need for digital signal processing in optical modules has
many advantages including significantly lowering latency, power
consumption and cost. The Open Eye industry consortium is committed to
investing its collective innovation and engineering resources for the
development of an industry-standard optical interconnect that leverages
seamless component interoperability among a broad group of
industry-leading technology providers, including providers of
electronics, lasers and optical components.

“LightCounting forecasts that sales of next-generation Ethernet products
will exceed $500 million in 2020,” said Dale Murray, Principal Analyst
at LightCounting. “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 Open Eye MSA consortium’s approach is a natural evolution relative
to today’s high-volume optical nodes, enabling users to scale to next
generation baud rates. The initial Open Eye MSA specification will focus
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. Subsequent
specifications will aim to address multimode and 100Gbps per lane
applications.

MACOM and Semtech Corporation initiated the formation of the Open Eye
MSA with 19 current members in Promoter and Contributing membership
classes.

Promoters include Applied Optoelectronics Inc., Cambridge Industries
(CIG), Color Chip, Juniper Networks, Luxshare-ICT, MACOM, Mellanox,
Molex, and Semtech Corporation.

Contributors include: Accelink, Cloud Light Technology, InnoLight,
Keysight Technologies, Maxim Integrated, O-Net, Optomind, Source
Photonics, and Sumitomo Electric.

The initial specification release is planned for Fall 2019, with product
availability to follow later in the year. Companies interested in
joining the Open Eye MSA can contact: admin@openeye-msa.org.
For more information about the consortium, visit: www.openeye-msa.org.

Commentary from members on the formation of the Open Eye MSA:

“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.” David (Chan
Chih) Chen, AVP, Strategic Marketing for Transceiver, AOI.

“As one of the earliest promoters of this technology, we had a live
module demo at OFC2019. With the recent acquisition of Lumentum/Oclaro’s
data center product portfolios, CIG is expanding its product offering
for both telecom and datacom markets. Our participation in the Open Eye
MSA will enable us to apply this expertise to serve our customers with
lower power and lower cost transceivers.” Michael Xin, VP of Sales and
Marketing, CIG.

“InnoLight has established itself as a leading provider of optical
connectivity for data centers. We will closely work with Open Eye MSA to
seek any opportunity on low cost and low power optical solution to
customers.” Hai Ding, VP Product Management, InnoLight.

“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.” Jeffery Maki,
Distinguished Engineer II, Juniper Networks.

“MACOM continues to drive the industry’s technical requirements towards
meeting the demands of Cloud Service Providers. Leveraging our proven
leadership in 25G, 50G and 100G analog chipsets and optical components,
we co-founded the Open Eye MSA to accelerate the adoption of 200G and
400G PAM optical interconnects. At the same time we are working in
parallel to advance the DSP technologies necessary for faster
connectivity speeds for future applications.” Preet Virk, Senior Vice
President and General Manager, Networks, MACOM.

“Maxim’s long history of delivering advanced analog solutions for
optical modules will enable both Open Eye MSA and standards based
solutions to benefit from low power and low latency while maintaining
high performance and full interoperability.” Dr. Andrew Sharratt,
Executive Director, Cloud and Data Center BU, Maxim.

“By taking advantage of the inherent benefits of fully analog module
architectures enabled by the Open Eye MSA, Mellanox and our industry
peers are helping data center and High-Performance Computing operators
achieve the low latency necessary for latency sensitive computing
applications. Low-power and low-cost are two key attributes every
transceiver buyer demands. Low-latency feature is critically important
in both Mellanox’s Ethernet and InfiniBand product lines for High
Performance Computing and Ethernet hyperscale systems. Mellanox has a
long history in designing, fabless manufacturing, and selling
analog-based transceiver ICs.” Steen Gundersen, Vice President of
LinkXTM cable and transceiver products, Mellanox.

“Molex is excited to support Open Eye MSA efforts to define low power
CDR-based solution for next generation 100Gbps serial interfaces which
will enable 400Gbps and 800Gbps QSFP and QSFP-DD optical modules.” Scott
Sommers, Group Product Manager, Molex.

“Semtech’s long history of innovation and leadership in analog optical
architectures is the ideal complement to the Open Eye MSA collaborative
effort, and we will help to drive an interoperability specification that
enables multiple supply sources.” Gary Beauchamp, Executive Vice
President and General Manager, Signal Integrity Products Group, Semtech
Corporation.

“Source Photonics is pleased to be a participating member of the Open
Eye MSA. Our expertise in lasers and optical modules will enable us to
provide our data center customers with low cost and low power optical
solutions utilizing the Open Eye MSA initiative.” Abhijeet Ardey, Sr.
Transceiver Design Engineer, Source Photonics.