Lightwave Exclusive: Interview with Phononic at OFC 2024

Phononic recently attended and exhibited at the the Optical Network and Communication Conference (OFC) in San Diego, CA. During the conference Ana Berry, the Technology Correspondent at Lightwave, a leading media source of technical information for optical communications strategists, interviewed Brooks Henderson, Director of Product Management at Phononic.

Learn how the exponential demand for high-speed optical transceivers for AI & ML applications has led to a requirement for cooled optics to keep up with the data rates – and how Phononic TECs are helping to push these speeds even further.

Phononic interview starts at the 2:20 mark – full transcript of the video below:

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

[Sean Buckley]

Hello and welcome to Lightwave’s final video show daily for OFC 2024. I’m Lightwave Editor-in-Chief Sean Buckley. I’m back again today to highlight the San Diego show’s key announcements, presentations and conversations.

Marvell, Phononic and Infinera sponsored this week’s show dailies. We thank all our sponsors for making these show dailies possible. The test and measurement community were in full force this week to provide validation for service providers supporting 800G in the growing AI trend.

VX introduced the RXT6800 Advanced 800G Multi-Service Test Module. Building on its RXT6402 400G High-Speed Module, the new RXT6800 is a portable solution that offers the flexibility of field testing current interfaces up to 800G. Fellow testing vendor Spirant introduced its latest offering for its 800G portfolio, the Spirant B3 800G Appliance.

Spirant’s OFC demonstration features the new B3 800G Appliance, a high-density native 800G OSFP and QSFP DD test platform, and the first in its class to support the IEEE 802.3DF specifications. As a vendor-neutral test system, the Spirant B3 800G Appliance will help accelerate 800G deployments to enable the networking industry to power new applications running AI and ML. Not to be outdone, Expo showcased its solutions that support the new generation of high-speed 800G optics, including its FTB-X 88800 series 800G test solutions for the lab, optical DCO and LPO, the BA4000 L2 Traffic and Bit Analyzer 800G to 1.6TB tester, L2 Traffic L1BER for R&D and manufacturing. Another key trend on the show floor this week was AI. Here with more on this topic is technology correspondent Anna Berry.

[Anna Berry]

Alright, thanks Sean. Yes, I’m here with Brooks Henderson, the Director of Product Management at Phononic. OFC 2024, what’s new and exciting for you guys this year?

[Brooks Henderson]

There’s a lot of new and exciting stuff for us. The first thing would be all the new data center architectures that are being talked about. We’re keeping a really close eye on LPO, linear receive optics, anything regarding data center cooled optics.

We’re the world’s leading supplier and provider of thermoelectric cooling inside data centers – so we’re excited about the different applications there. As the bandwidth requirements go up, you’ve got to have cooled optics, and we’re here to provide that. The other thing we’re really excited about is coherent. Anything coherent needs a TEC, and applications like data center interconnects, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff that’s being talked about that we’re involved in.

[Anna Berry]

Great, and a key theme this year is AI, so talk about how Phononic incorporates AI into your technology.

[Brooks Henderson]

Sure, so these AI models that need to be trained inside of data centers, they require billions of parameters, high bandwidth, low latency connections, and you have to use cooled optics for these computations. It’s critical to have a TEC that works to do that cooling, and that’s where we come in.

[Anna Berry]

Keeping it cool with Phononic. I don’t know if that’s your tagline, but it should be.

[Brooks Henderson]

It should be. I think I’ll write that one down.

[Anna Berry]

Awesome. Thanks, Brooks.

[Brooks Henderson]

Thanks, Anna.

[Anna Berry]

All right, thanks for watching, guys.

[Sean Buckley]

Thanks, Anna. I also wanted to call out an exciting group of emerging vendors that were featured during the OFC show. Chiral Photonics showcased its multi-core fiber products, including its FanOut solution.

Multi-core fiber MCF is increasingly of interest for applications ranging from 3D shape sensing to space division multiplexing to high-density coupling for photonic integrated circuits and interconnects. TerraSignal showed off its intelligent CMOS-based re-driver solutions tailored for intelligent LPO modules. These solutions integrate low latency and power efficiency, enhancing link capabilities and diagnostics while ensuring rapid deployment.

And New Photonics introduced its NPG102 second generation photonic integrated circuit, PIC, with an integrated optical equalizer. The new product addresses how AI workloads in the data centers drive greater demand for minimal latency and power performance. Finally, I wanted to draw attention to LightWave’s special event, which highlighted our research on how AI will drive future growth in the optical networking industry.

Led by myself, LightWave’s editor-in-chief, Sean Buckley, the panel featured industry experts from five companies squarely in the networking space, AFL, Enablance Technologies, Infinera, Momentum, and Viavi. Following OFC, you can listen to a special webinar presentation of the event on April 4th. Go to our website at www.lightwaveonline.com slash webcast to register. There was a lot to unpack on the show floor, and we could not get to it all. This means we have come to the end of our video show daily series. Again, I wanted to thank our sponsors Marvell, Phononic, and Infinera for making this program possible, and thanks to you for watching as well.