Infinera unveiled its Infinite Capacity Engine, a multi-terabit optical subsystem combining the company’s next generation FlexCoherent Processor and the photonics of its fourth generation photonic integrated circuit (PIC).
The Infinite Capacity Engine, which will be integrated into the Infinera portfolio of long-haul terrestrial, subsea, metro and data center interconnect platforms, breaks new ground for optical transport by being the first in the industry to deliver optical super-channel capacity up to 2.4 terabits per second and reach up to 12,000 kilometers in a single small package.
Infinera said its new Infinite Capacity Engine represents the next step function in WDM performance because of the capacity jump to 2.4 Tbps of optical bandwidth, combined with longer reach, better power efficiency and the integration of other advanced functions. Significantly, the Infinite Capacity Engine furthers the company’s Instant Bandwidth capability, which enables pre-deployed bandwidth to be provisioned on-demand in 100 Gbps increments via software activation. New capabilities include 100G temporary licenses, enabling capacity to be deployed for a specific duration of time.
Some highlights of the Infinera Infinite Capacity Engine:
- Massive scale: supporting super-channels up to 2.4 Tbps from a single subsystem with up to 12 times more bandwidth than other implementations.
- Advanced Coherent Toolkit (ACT): delivers up to 60 percent more capacity-reach performance for submarine and terrestrial networks than the current generation of optical technologies by allowing extended reach and/or utilization of higher order modulation formats on a per channel or super-channel basis in challenging fiber environments. The Infinera ACT features Nyquist subcarriers, a new technology that increases tolerance for non-linear effects and SD-FEC gain sharing. In addition, multiple modulation formats are supported including matrix enhanced – phase shift keying (ME-PSK), BPSK, 3QAM, QPSK, 8QAM and 16QAM.
- Sliceable super-channels: provides the unique ability to deliver 2.4 Tbps of capacity in a single module with a single fiber pair. In addition, it provides fine-grained and flexible control of optical wavelengths at 100 Gb/s. The Infinite Capacity Engine can tune and route a 100 Gbps wavelength or N x 100 Gbps super-channels in multiple separate directions with any specified flexible grid coherent modulation across the extended C-Band. As a result, network line-card module requirements can be reduced up to 77 percent while delivering tremendous flexibility. Moreover, total cost of ownership can be reduced by up to 53 percent as compared to non-sliceable implementations.
- In-flight wire-speed encryption: encrypts traffic transparently at Layer 1 on a per service basis or in the bulk mode per super-channel, using the strong 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) key. The Infinite Capacity Engine is integrated with easy-to-use key exchange and cryptography mechanisms, providing wire-rate multi-terabit processing with more capacity than current industry solutions.
“The Infinera Infinite Capacity Engine ushers in a new era in optical transport networking and is the foundation for network operators to rapidly respond to massive bandwidth demands,” said Dr. Dave Welch, Infinera Co-founder and President.
