100G CWDM 10km Specification Published by the 4WDM MSA Group

The 4-Wavelength WDM MSA group is pleased to announce the release of a new specification for a low cost and low power 100G interface with 10 km reach. The 100G-4WDM-10 technical specification leverages the success of the CWDM4 2 km specification that has found broad acceptance in its target datacenter market.

Like CWDM4, the 100G-4WDM-10 specification employs 4 lanes of 25 Gb/s using Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) technology to transport 100G optical traffic across duplex single mode fiber (SMF). Both specifications take advantage of Forward Error Correction (FEC) on the host port, in accordance with IEEE 802.3bj KR4 RS FEC.  One key advantage of CWDM is that the lasers do not need to be cooled or temperature controlled, resulting in lower power consumption and simplicity of manufacturing.  100G-4WDM-10 transceivers share these advantages and furthermore are specified to be fully interoperable with CWDM4 products. The 100G-4WDM-10 specification does not restrict the form-factor although high-density QSFP28 modules are expected to be dominant.

“Demand for 100GbE optical transceivers reached $1.1 billion in 2016 with demand exceeding supply. Our data shows strong interest in 10km modules. Being optimized for data centers, the new 100G‑4WDM‑10 will become an important complement to 10km 100G‑LR4 modules,” remarked Dale Murray, Principal Analyst, LightCounting Market Research.

Chris Cole of Finisar, Project Chair, commented that “the new 10km specification builds on ten years of optics industry experience in developing and deploying 100G SMF interfaces and will lead to continued cost reduction.”

The group has grown since its formation in September 2016 and continues to attract new members.

Current member companies are Applied Optoelectronics, Inc., Broadcom Limited, Brocade, Ciena, ColorChip, Dell Inc., Finisar Corporation, Foxconn Interconnect Technology, Huawei Technology Co., Ltd., Inphi Corporation, Intel Corporation, Juniper Networks, Kaiam Corp., Lumentum, MACOM Technology, NeoPhotonics Corporation, Oclaro Inc., Skorpios Technologies Inc., Source Photonics, and Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.