Molex is ramping production of its commercially available 400G ZR QSFP-DD pluggable coherent optical transceivers to support ever-increasing demands for advanced Data Centre Interconnect (DCI) solutions. An integral part of Molex’s ever-expanding optical transceiver portfolio, the 400G ZR and 400G ZR+ products are designed to deliver optimized data transmission rates with low power consumption in a small form factor.
“Molex is meeting the need for faster transmission speeds both between and inside next-gen data centres,” says Joseph Chon, director, Coherent Technology and Product Line Management, Molex Optoelectronics. “By ramping commercialization and production of the 400G ZR product line, we can enable mega-cloud data centre operators to better address a vast range of high-density, bandwidth-intensive applications.”
The rapid rise in work-from-home and distance learning has created unprecedented bandwidth requirements, which also are impacted by major adoption of streaming video, social networking and applications leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing. As a result, data centre operators are seeking high-density, low-latency and low-power Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) links to connect multiple data centres. With Molex’s 400G ZR QSFP-DD coherent optical transceivers, operators can connect data centres within a region, enabling them to function as a single data centre without the need for a separate transport box.
Standards-based, verified performance
Designed in compliance with the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) 400G ZR standard, Molex’s 400G ZR is among the first standards-based, pluggable coherent optical modules to be commercially available in volume. In addition, the 400G OpenZR+, which is slated for availability in Q2, extends reach from 120km to about 600km at low power consumption to enable 12.8T in 1RU switch or router chassis.
Molex also completed experimental verification of 400 Gb/s data transmission over DCI ZR distances in a 75 GHz spaced DWDM link with amplification in an Open Line System (OLS). Using the compact, cost-effective Molex 400G ZR QSFP-DD transceiver modules in conjunction with 75 GHz OLS increases bandwidth capacity of optical fibres in a DCI application and can decrease the cost per bit significantly.
