In anticipation of the 40G market withering away, Oclaro is putting its emphasis on its 25Gbit/s laser diode line. Data centers are jumping to 100 Gbits/s, and currently the easiest route to 100G is with 4 x 25G transceivers meshed to transmit over single-mode fiber.

Meanwhile, companies with 10G interconnect and no immediate need to jump to 100G, which includes many telcos, can get a 2.5x acceleration in many instances without having to upgrade much else other than the interconnect.

Oclaro Inc. (Nasdaq: OCLR) said its 25Gbit/s 1.3 μm distributed feedback (DFB) laser diodes have been qualified for 100Gbit/s transceivers, and are now ready to move into production.

The 25Gbit/s DFB laser diode is designed for high-end spine switch/core router interfaces and large-scale data center meshed networks, the company said.

The diodes operate in non-hermetic packages, which the company explained should encourage easier implementation and therefore faster adoption.

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The 25G diodes are built with Oclaro’s InAlGaAs-MQW process. Oclaro chief marketing officer Adam Carter estimates that while there might be well in excess of a dozen fabs around the world capable of creating 10G lasers, only a small handful can do 25G and above, putting Oclaro in rare company at the leading edge of the market.

Meanwhile, he said, Oclaro will be "end-of-lifing" its 40G portfolio.

At the same time, the company said it has qualified and released to production both its 2km CWDM4 QSFP28 and 10km LR4 QSFP28 client-side transceivers designed for 100Gbit/s interconnections between switches within data centers, in addition to conventional router and transport 100Gbit/s client side interfaces in core networks.

By delivering low power consumption and high transmission performance quality through Oclaro’s internal 1310 28 Gbit/s laser diode and lens-integrated receiver technologies, the CWDM4 and LR4 QSFP28 transceivers will enable data centers to transition to longer-reach SMF interconnections needed to support today’s growing bandwidth demands.

— Brian Santo, SeniorEditor, Components, T&M, LightReading