• 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

March 2014

OFC Day 4 – Wednesday, March 12 – What a world (of photonics)…

By Casimer DeCusatis Ph.D | Posted: 13 March 2014

Welcome back to my daily blog about OFC 2014. Today we’ll be taking a look at the wide world of photonics represented at OFC, from service providers and cloud computing to optoelectronic packaging and software for dynamic network provisioning.

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OFC Day 3 - Tuesday, March 11 - Plenaries, Posters, & Exhibits, oh my!

By Casimer DeCusatis Ph.D | Posted: 12 March 2014

Another full day of events at OFC…today I’ll be checking out the plenary sessions, wandering through the posters & vendor exhibits, and taking in a few interactive sessions as well.

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Coherent optical OFDM: What is it good for?

By Vivian (Xi) Chen | Posted: 11 March 2014

OFDM, short for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing, is a method of encoding data on multiple carrier frequencies. And the coherent optical OFDM (CO-OFDM) is OFDM data that is being modulated to light frequency and being detected in coherent manner. Though OFDM has been standardized in wireless communication (e.g. IEEE 802.11) for a long time, the CO-OFDM was proposed around 2008 and is a relatively new concept for optical fiber transmission.

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What are the possible ways to combat fiber nonlinearity?

By Vivian (Xi) Chen | Posted: 11 March 2014

Fiber nonlinearity is and important concerns for large capacity fiber transmission. When we try to increase system capacity, we occupy a wide optical bandwidth and use a high order modulation format, and thus need a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to keep a certain level of bit-error-rate (BER). Consequently, more and more power is launched into the fiber. It is then that the fiber nonlinear effect becomes a significant factor that degrades signal quality.

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OFC Day 2 - Monday, March 10 - Follow the 100G road

By Casimer DeCusatis Ph.D | Posted: 11 March 2014

OFC 2014 is in full swing by now, and as usual I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of events running in parallel. It’s just not possible for one person to cover the entire conference, but I think you’ll find the highlights that I’ve selected for today’s blog to be both interesting and controversial.

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OFC Day 1 - Sunday, March 9 - Off to see the wizards...

By Casimer DeCusatis Ph.D. | Posted: 10 March 2014

Welcome to my daily blog from OFC 2014!  For the duration of the conference, I’ll be updating you on some of the most interesting topics at the event, reviewing key presentations, and generally taking the pulse of OFC.  We’ve got a lot to cover, starting with the conference kickoff events.

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“Unstoppable” Virtualization Means More Network Hits in 2014

By Daniel Tardent | Posted: 6 March 2014

It might be too early to call 2014 the “year of virtualization” but there’s no doubting that use of the technology will grow as will its impact on data center networks. 
 
Virtualization is good news for server utilization, power consumption and application performance.  But it is not so good for the network, because virtualization adds extra network loads that can have a significant impact on performance and response times.

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How to convince your boss that you should go to OFC in 3 easy steps

By Casimer DeCusatis Ph.D. | Posted: 6 March 2014

It’s been said that the Eskimos have 50 different words for snow because it’s such an intimate part of their daily lives.  I’ve been building up my own list of words for “busy”…early last year my work was “really really busy”, then for a month or so it was just “really busy”, and in January it jumped back up to “crazy insane Defcon 4 duck-and-cover busy”.   I suspect your work has been the same – tighter budgets, shorter deadlines, pressure to do more with less. 
 

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Optical Networking Trends that Aren’t Spelled SDN

By Scott Wilkinson | Posted: 5 March 2014

Telecommunications and optical networking are going through a welcome resurgence after years of relative stagnation following the telecom crash in the late 1990s and early 2000s. New technological advancements are reinvigorating networks to meet explosive demands from data centers, non-traditional carriers, content delivery networks and ubiquitous video. Trends like Software-Defined Networking (SDN) show great possibilities for enhanced network capabilities, and most vendors now have an SDN story to tout. However, it can be easy to overlook other equally exciting trends in optical networking that are making an even bigger impact today.

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Will the Space-Division Multiplexing be the solution for the capacity crunch?

By Vivian (Xi) Chen | Posted: 4 March 2014

The exponential growth of internet traffic at about 2 dB per annum could exhaust the available capacity of single-mode fiber in the near future. But space-division multiplexing (SDM) has been proposed to keep up with capacity improvement. One of the categories of SDM, multi-core fibre (MCF), has multiple individual fibre cores via which signals propagate independently in different fibre cores. The other category of SDM, few-mode fibre (FMF), has one single core in which a few fibre modes are propagating together.

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The final countdown until OFC 2014: What to check out besides the main conference program?

By Dr. Ioannis Tomkos | Posted: 4 March 2014

Most researchers attending OFC every year rush to attend interesting talks that are presented at the many parallel conference sessions. The vast majority of people also take some time to visit the exhibition space, check out what new products are on display (by 550 exhibitors!), and observe the exciting live demonstrations at “mobile-labs” and the dazzling booths of the major exhibitors.

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Betting on Exascale

By Casimer DeCusatis Ph.D. | Posted: 5 February 2014

One hot topic for the futurists at OFC 2014 is bound to be the outlook for exascale computing, and the role of optical interconnects in making it a reality.

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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.