Jabil Photonics Applications

Jabil Photonics Applications – 5G 

The complexity and scale of the 4G to 5G network evolution means you need the right partner to support your evolving photonics applications requirements. This 4G to 5G architecture needs to consider the following key elements to be successful:

• Bandwidth from each RRH or CU/DU is increasing and is typically 10Gb/s or 25 Gb/S
• Latency requirements are very stringent and require the nodes to pass-through traffic at the lowest possible transport layer
• Coexistence with 4G architecture enables the sharing of a single infrastructure for the current and the previous network technology

Additionally, the “dark fiber” access rings that 4G had been typically based on are migrating to wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) technology with double target to increase the bandwidth and reduce the latency in the pass-through nodes. As a result, today’s architecture requires the following main WDM building blocks:

• Passive filters – to add/drop the specific wavelengths in the access nodes and to terminate all the wavelengths in the hub node (ROADM architecture can also be an option but is currently too expensive for the target total cost of ownership of the 5G network)
• Amplification – is needed to exceed the pure passive network optical power budget
• Optical transceivers (colored) – are hosted in all the network elements of the network both in the remote nodes and in the hub 

Jabil Photonics provides the capabilities and confidence in design and manufacturing to ensure you have the right partner to address the 5G application.

Jabil Photonics Applications – Cable Access

Evolving the capacity over the cable access to 10Gb/s resulting from the DOCSIS 4.0 requires the network between Converged Cable Access Platform Core (CCAP) and Remote PHY Device (RPD) to evolve accordingly. 

The introduction of WDM technology enables existing and future bandwidth requirements to be addressed. Examples include:

• CCAP CORE sends traffic to all RPD multiplexing different wavelengths over the same physical fiber infrastructure
• Each RPD filters its own wavelength (and uses the same for transmission)
• Wavelengths can be initially 10Gb/s evolving to 100Gb/s in the future

A convergent single network able to host different kinds of services has also been defined by CableLabs as a combination of technologies that will deliver symmetric multi-gigabit Internet speeds with the promise to be 10 times faster than today’s networks and 100 times faster than what most consumers currently experience – with lower latencies, enhanced security and greater reliability. 

Jabil Photonics provides the capabilities and confidence in design and manufacturing to ensure you have the right partner to address cable access application requirements. 

Jabil Photonics Applications – Datacenter Interconnect

The introduction of 400ZR modules, especially with QSFP-DD form factor, is poised to change the architecture solution for datacenter interconnect in metro/metro-regional spaces. The 400ZR modules are defined to be hosted directly in the client system without the need of specific optical boxes dedicated t metro datacenter interconnect, which is needed for long haul applications. As a result, the WDM line systems need to be compatible with the ZR optical solution and the overall architecture.

Key Technologies

Open line system in the 400ZR era requires the following main WDM building blocks:

• Passive filters to add/drop the specific wavelengths in the access nodes and to terminate all the wavelengths in the hub node. FlexGrid will play an important role to maximize the fiber usage (400ZR is compatible with 75GHz grid)
• Amplification is needed to exceed the pure passive network optical power budget. Mini amplification or pluggable amplifiers could play an important role for simple scenarios
• Monitoring systems based on filters, monitoring and attenuators could be new required systems in the new datacenter interconnect architecture for 400ZR

Jabil Photonics Applications – Edge Computing

Edge computing will be driven by 5G and serve as a key technology and architecture. Edge computing is geared to be the basis of all the applications requiring processing with extremely low latency. As a result, a centralized process will not be possible and the distribution of the intelligence in the network will be the only solution to satisfy this requirement. 

Edge computing and virtualization are two concepts that are related, and the capability to move applications from a centralized datacenter to the periphery of the network is allowed by virtualization concepts. Project impacts of this include:

• On the plane level – connectivity will be flexible to allow increases/decreases of data path bandwidth (e.g., MPLS LSP) to transport information from the edge to the core and vice versa 
• On the orchestration level – the NRV management needs to drive the transport to create the connectivity required to move information (e.g., MPLS LSP)

Key characteristics of transport networks associated to edge computing and cloud architecture include:

• Bandwidth – VNF will be allocated where needed (either centralizing or distributing in the periphery of the network) but this does require bandwidth 
• Flexibility – the allocation of bandwidth is not permanent but should allow for fast re configuration 

Transport networks optimized for edge computing requires:

•  WDM technology to increase bandwidth and minimize latency
• ROADM (WSS based) function to enable reconfigurability transport resources according to the requested connectivity and bandwidth
• Coherent technology to provide high-capacity network connectivity

Jabil Photonics provides the capabilities and confidence in design and manufacturing to ensure you have the right partner to meet your 5G, cable access, datacenter interconnect and edge computing requirements.