• A Hybrid Conference – In-Person and Virtual Presentations
  • Technical Conference:  24 – 28 March 2024
  • Exhibition: 26 – 28 March 2024
  • San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, USA

Thursday at OFC/NFOEC 2013 - Silicon Photonics & Homeward Bound

By Casimer DeCusatis, Ph.D.


This will be my final day at OFC/NFOEC 2013; I can’t believe it’s been four days already, and it feels like we’ve barely scratched the surface of all the interesting possibilities going on in the field. 
 
I spent some time today just looking over the exhibition booths, to pick up some literature from startup companies that I didn’t know a lot about, as well as some more well-known companies that are shaking up the industry.  For example, I heard about a startup called IHP working on silicon photonic transmitters; some new SDN features for carriers from Juniper (an ODIN architecture endorser), and some networking research on centralized control planes from the University of Bristol.  There was also a Market Watch panel on metro applications for 100G for this with more of a business interest.  If I don’t mention your favorite company or university, please don’t be offended; there are dozens of them in the exhibit hall, and I can’t possibly cover them all. 
 
Another symposium, sponsored by ODIN-endorser Huawei, addressed topics such as the use of high speed pluggable optics at Verizon and throughout the industry.  High speed optics for core routers, MEMs switches, and warehouse scale data centers were discussed.  Another panel talked about the search for “booster rocket” technologies.  As this analogy implies, the data market is calling for even greater advances in data rates, distance extension, latency, and quality of service.  This requires lighting another “rocket stage” from the development labs and components suppliers around the world.  Achieving this while keeping component costs manageable is a huge challenge for the industry this coming year.  Finally, a panel on metro applications for 100G networks investigated new approaches to ROADMs, optical motulation, and wavelength division multiplexing components including dispersion compensators and optical amplifiers.  Energy efficient networking and demonstrations of 50 terabit optical links this afternoon helped round out the day’s events. 
 
I have to head over the Los Angeles international airport now, to catch up on some email while I wait for my flight back to New York.  I’ll be online as much as possible during the trip (hopefully with in-flight wi-fi) to recap highlights of my week at OFC on twitter (@Dr_Casimer).  This was one of the smoothest running professional conferences I’ve attended in recent months, so hats off to the organizers who made OFC such a big success.  I hope you enjoyed reading about my trip to OFC, and got some tips on the hot symposia, workshops, tutorials, and after-hours sessions.  Drop me a line if you’d like to share your OFC story, and maybe I’ll blog about it some other time.

Disclaimer: Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by IBM.

Casimer DeCusatis, Ph.D. Distinguished Engineer IBM System Networking, CTO Strategic Alliances Member, IBM Academy of Technology IBM Corporation.

Posted: 22 March 2013 by Casimer DeCusatis, Ph.D. | with 0 comments

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The views expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of The Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC)  or its sponsors.