The 400G era begins and will become dominant in 2023

And verification on beyond 100G technology, and 200G has been deployed in some areas.

In the first half of this year, China Mobile announced the results of centralized procurement of G.654E optical fiber and cable. This is also the first time that China Mobile has started centralized procurement of G.654E optical fiber and cable.

400G is the main growth point of optical modules in the next 5 years

In addition, for oDSP, the key technology of ultra- 400G , its first-generation commercial oDSP adopts 7nm, 96GB baud rate, and 64QAM modulation pattern to support short-distance transmission at 800G rate. The new generation of oDSP adopts 5nm, 130GB baud rate, and QPSK modulation pattern to support long-distance transmission at 400G rate of 1500 kilometers.

The next generation transmission network will move towards 400G × 80 waves

In the context of digital transformation and upgrading, business traffic continues to rise, and the optical transport network needs to evolve to a larger capacity. 400G QPSK will become the mainstream code type of the trunk line. From a standard point of view, QPSK-based single-carrier 400G b/s will become the next generation The mainstream rate of long-distance WDM.

It is reported that the domestic CCSA has completed the standardization work of 400G b /s (single carrier, 16QAM code type) and long-distance 400G b/s (dual carrier, 8QAM/16QAM/QPSK code type) in the metropolitan area. The standard (single carrier, QPSK pattern) is expected to be completed in 2023.

Therefore, 400G QPSK is the technical direction of the next-generation backbone network 400G transmission network. The next-generation backbone network technology needs to have the following two capabilities: 1. Match 400G E service requirements: a single-wave 400G line rate is a necessary condition; use 200G to implement The inverse multiplexing solution proved to be unacceptable. 2. Meet the ultra-long-distance requirements: 400G QPSK has a transmission distance of 1500km on the live network; 16QAM and higher-order modulation formats have limited transmission distance. The current network transmission distance is within 1000km, which cannot meet the long-distance transmission requirements.

Kong Fanhua, Chief Expert of Backbone Wavelength Division in Huawei’s optical transmission field, also said that 400G is a big generation of optical transmission network, and the next generation transmission network will move towards 400G × 80 waves. The goal of the 400G × 80-wave all-optical quality capacity network is ultra-large bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and ultra-high reliability. At the same time, networking capabilities, optical fiber infrastructure, and operation and maintenance habits remain unchanged. In the computing power network era, the “capacity” of optical transmission is equally important as “computing power” and “storage power”, which is the cornerstone of digital transformation and upgrading.

In Kong Fanhua’s view, the basic law of the development of the optical transmission industry is “the distance remains the same, but the capacity doubles.” In order to realize a 400G × 80-wave all-optical quality capacity network, we must first innovate in coherent optical modules, and the performance of 400G must be comparable to that of 100G or 200G: in terms of new materials, break through 130GB+ high baud rate devices; in terms of new processes, adopt The new process of optoelectronic sealing optimizes link bandwidth; in terms of new algorithms, the original core algorithm combined with Huawei’s European scientist team makes its performance approach the Shannon limit.