Processor enables networks to manage unprecedented traffic growth

"We have been working very closely with some of the world's leading original equipment manufacturers to complete Carrier qualification of their 400G OTN designs," said Babak Samimi, Vice President and business unit manager, Microsemi, Communications business unit. "This year we will see our DIGI-G4 deployed in networks worldwide as the key technology for driving the transition to 400G OTN switching, in addition to enabling a new wave of flexible optical transport infrastructure that is Software-Defined Networking (SDN)-ready and delivers on the security needs being demanded for cloud-connectivity powered by our embedded encryption engine."

Microsemi's DIGI-G4 enables customers to double the 100G OTN port density on their optical transport systems, while achieving a 50% reduction in power per 100G port. In addition, the company's customers are realising significant time-to-market benefit from re-using their investment in DIGI software from existing 100G OTN designs with DIGI-120G shipping today into service provider and hyperscale Data Centre Interconnect (DCI) networks.

According to market research firm Infonetics, service providers worldwide are scrambling to scale their OTNs to keep up with unprecedented growth in Internet traffic. As a result, 100G dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) port deployments are forecast to grow at more than 40% annually through to 2019. Microsemi's DIGI-G4 is a critical component for the new gen of transport platforms solving 400G OTN switching on P-OTPs and ultra-dense 100G port cards on DCI platforms as key drivers behind the $11.4bn forecasted capital spend on OTN optical equipment in 2016.

DIGI-G4's differentiated offering:

- Industry's first single-chip 4x100G solution for OTN switched line cards

- Integrated 100G gearbox for direct connect to CFP2, CFP4 and QSFP28 transceivers

- Industry's highest density 10G, 40G and 100G multi-service support, including Ethernet, storage, IP/MPLS and SONET/SDH

- Industry's first sub-wavelength OTN encryption solution to secure the cloud

- Industry's first 25G granularity flexible framer to DSP interface providing scalable line-rates to match the programmable modulation capabilities found in next-generation coherent DSPs

- Multi-chip Interlaken interconnect solutions for scalable compact chassis data centre interconnect applications

- High performance OTN-SDK with adapter layer software accelerates customer time-to-market

Microsemi offers a breadth of products for the OTN equipment market. Complementing the DIGI-G4 OTN processor are:

• High performance, compact drivers for 100G-400G optical modules, for metro and long-haul applications using smaller footprint surface mount technology (SMT) packaging;

• ZL30169, a high precision any-rate clock translator simplifying clocking design on the line card; and

• SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA, which can interface to DIGI-G4 to offload OAM control processing.

The DIGI-G4 reference design, which targets Data Centre Interconnect, uses Microsemi timing solutions, demonstrating market share and content growth opportunities as a result of the company's most recent acquisition. With design updates under way, Microsemi's DIGI-G4 evaluation kits will also feature the company's timing devices beginning Q3 2016.