SC347 - Reliability and Qualification of Fiber-Optic Components
08 Mar 2027
08:30 - 12:30
Short Course Level
Beginner
Short Course Description
This course focuses on qualifying data and telecommunication components and modules that are key to modern data centers. This course is designed to focus on the very high-volume data center and AI interconnect market, where a few hundred billion dollars a year is currently being spent, and reliable interconnects are key to success. For the co-packaged optics the industry is driving to, reliability has been the main obstacle to deployment, and we will discuss the expected failure rates for traditional systems with pluggable transceivers, and the more demanding requirements co-packaged optics will need, and how they might achieve those goals. We will also cover pluggable replacements, redundancy, and software-defined channels as additional ways of reducing the impact of hardware failures. In this course, we will frequently resort to case studies of where suppliers have experienced failure, as a way to illustrate what key steps were missed along the way, and how the problems could have been avoided. The course will be organized in a chronological manner, starting with the design concept and architecture, and how that leads to reliability requirements. Next it goes through setting up reliability test infrastructure, and designing a reliability qualification plan, pre-qualification testing, failure analysis, reliability qualification and product release gates, and finally maintaining released products with ongoing reliability testing.
Short Course Benefits
- Calculate reliability requirements for fiber optic components based on system reliability requirements.
- Design reliability tests, choose conditions, and choose sample sizes.
- Calculate expected failure rates for transceiver products based on test data
- Select reliability test equipment and the best test methods for your design.
- Write a reliability report that meets customer expectations.
- Summarize the requirements of reliability standards, including Telcordia GR-468 and its limitations, and the contents of many proprietary “add-on” specifications that address those gaps.
- List new developments relevant to reliability, and hear proposed paths to future improvement that could be used in the next generation of datacom equipment.
Short Course Audience
The course is oriented toward four key groups: photonic and laser designers with an interest in reliability, reliability engineers, engineering managers overseeing product development or manufacturing, and those specifying or purchasing datacom lasers or fiber optic transceivers. A basic understanding of how photonic devices work will be assumed of attendees, although no prior reliability knowledge is assumed.
Instructor
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Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick Consulting, United States
Dr. Robert Herrick is one of the world’s foremost authorities on reliability and failure analysis of semiconductor lasers and optoelectronics, and has written many of the most cited book chapters and research papers on the subject. He has been a reliability engineer in Silicon Valley for the past 28 years, qualifying many of the best-selling data communications products on the market, and lead optoelectronic component reliability testing at Intel from 2013 – 2023. He has run a reliability consultancy since leaving Intel, advising numerous start-ups in the photonic space.