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OIF Marks 25th Anniversary, Launches New Physical & Link Layer Working Group Electrical Project and Adds 112G VSR Clause to CEI 5.0 IA at Q1 Technical and MA&E Committees Meeting

The meeting hosted leading analysts from 650 Group and LightCounting as guest speakers giving member participants direct access to research, forecasting of industry growth and the impact of OIF’s work

Fremont, Calif.—January 23, 2023 – OIF’s first Technical and MA&E Committees Meeting of the year kicked off a year-long celebration of OIF’s 25th anniversary, the launch of an enhanced SGMII project – a Physical & Link Layer (PLL) Working Group Electrical track project – and the completion of the Common Electrical I/O (CEI)-112G-VSR, as well as featured guest speakers, Vladimir Kozlov, CEO, LightCounting; and Alan Weckel, Founder and Technology Analyst, 650 Group.

The Q1 Technical and MA&E Committees Meeting was held in person and virtually January 10-12, 2023, in Indian Wells, California.

25th Anniversary

For 25 years, OIF has accelerated progressive transformation in optical networking by serving as the only global industry forum driving the electrical, optical and control interoperability that enables a more efficient and reliable network. Its active member ecosystem of more than 140 companies collaborates through a transparent and fast-paced process to develop, validate and publish Implementation Agreements (IAs) and technical white papers critical to accelerating market adoption of interoperable optical networking technologies.

Opening the week of celebration, Stephen Hardy, Editorial Director of Lightwave, welcomed attendees with a special virtual greeting – a “Friday 5” featuring the five OIF IAs that Hardy believes have been the most transformative to the industry.

Approval of Common Electrical I/O (CEI)-112G-VSR

CEI-112G-VSR-PAM4 specifies a 112 Gb/s chip-to-module PAM4 electrical interface for use in the range 36 to 58 Gsym/s with up to 16 dB loss at the Nyquist frequency, including one connector. Hosts and modules compliant to CEI-112G-VSR-PAM4 from different manufacturers are interoperable.

“CEI-112G-VSR allows for an interoperable environment using optical pluggable modules critical to networking and challenging AI/ML connectivity,” said Dr. Karl Bois, OIF Technical Committee Vice Chair, NVIDIA Corporation. “The networking and data center ecosystems have a new powerful implementation recipe to increase throughput and capacity, especially when the network is part of the Compute infrastructure.”

New Electrical Project – Enhanced SGMII Electrical Specifications

The enhanced SGMII (E-SGMII) specifications will be based on modernized current mode logic (CML) electrical specifications instead of legacy LVDS and provide an optional high-speed 1 GbE interface to supplement the management of modules. Specifically, it will define a 1 GbE (1.25 GBd) high-speed serial interface for modules based on a modernized, enhanced SGMII. E-SGMII will have applications both for next-generation modules and for existing form factors with sufficient pins available.

Guest Speakers – Vladimir Kozlov, Founder and CEO, LightCounting; and Alan Weckel, Founder and Technology Analyst, 650 Group

Kozlov, Founder and CEO of LightCounting, an optical communications market research company:

“It takes a collective mind of the industry experts to filter out the best product ideas enabled by cutting-edge technologies,” said Kozlov. “OIF created a framework to keep the collective mind productive by letting the experts debate respectfully, yet often passionately. Some projects turn into success stories in 2-3 years, with 400ZR being the most recent example. Others take up to 7 years to complete, and many never make it to the market, but they all help chart the industry’s future. I am looking forward to the 50th anniversary of OIF. The next 25 years will be even more fun since the industry has many diverging routes to consider.”

Weckel, Founder and Technology Analyst of 650 Group, a trusted market research firm:

“As OIF celebrates its 25th anniversary, the organization continues to push critical standards and efforts forward that help shape almost every data center and network in the world today,” said Weckel. “If we look at all the recent and upcoming announcements on 56/112/224 Gbps SERDES and ZR optics, the OIF was critical in bringing those products to market.”

About OIF

OIF is where the optical networking industry’s interoperability work gets done. Celebrating 25 years of effecting forward change in the industry, OIF represents the dynamic ecosystem of 140+ industry leading network operators, system vendors, component vendors and test equipment vendors collaborating to develop interoperable electrical, optical and control solutions that directly impact the industry’s ecosystem and facilitate global connectivity in the open network world. Connect with OIF at @OIForum, on LinkedIn and at http://www.oiforum.com.

 

PR Contact:

Leah Wilkinson

Wilkinson + Associates for OIF

703-907-0010

leah@wilkinson.associates

 

OIF Q1 2022 Member Meeting Results in New CEI and CMIS Projects, Working Group Election

Dave Stauffer re-elected as Chair of OIF Physical & Link Layer Working Group

Fremont, Calif.—March 16, 2022 – Highlights from OIF’s first member meeting of the year include four new Common Electrical I/O (CEI) projects, two new Common Management Interface Specification (CMIS) project launches, an OIF Working Group election, and an industry talk from Scott Wilkinson, Lead Analyst, Networking Components, Cignal AI. The Q122 Technical and MA&E Committees Meeting was held virtually February 7-11.

NEW PROJECTS

CEI

OIF launched four new CEI projects during the meeting: CEI-224G-Extra Short Reach (XSR) Common Electrical On-Package Interface Project, CEI-224G-Very Short Reach (VSR) Common Electrical Chip-to-Module Interface Project, CEI-224G-Medium Reach (MR) Common Electrical Chip-to-Chip Interface Project, and CEI-224G-Long Reach (LR) Common Electrical Backplane and Copper Cable Interface Project. These projects are the first set to target the 224G generation of electrical interfaces.

In addition to these 224G project launches, OIF membership approved publishing the 224G Framework Project white paper that was kicked off in August 2020. “OIF’s CEI-224G framework project white paper provides a roadmap for the applications, challenges and projects needed to support new specifications and technologies – these four new projects will develop the Implementation Agreements (IAs) to address that roadmap,” said Dave Stauffer, Kandou Bus and Chair, OIF Physical and Link Layer (PLL) Working Group.

CMIS: Form-Factor Specific Hardware Management

OIF initiated a new project to create supplemental specifications to CMIS for Form-factor Specific Hardware Management (FSHM). CMIS has been adopted to manage future generation of small form-factor pluggable (SFP) 112, SFP-DD/SFP-DD112, and quad small form-factor pluggable (QSFP) 112. Currently, CMIS does not provide hardware management control for these form-factors. FSHM will define form-factor specific module hardware management registers in CMIS allocated page 05h.

CMIS: Adding CMIS Support for Host-Module Link Training

OIF started another new project that will add CMIS Support for Host-Module Link Training. This project will provide an optional out-of-band, protocol agnostic, management mechanism for optimizing link tuning and training.

OIF ELECTION
Stauffer was re-elected to serve a two-year term as Chair of OIF’s PLL Working Group. Dr. Stauffer has served in this role since 2006. The OIF PLL Working Group develops IAs related to physical and data link layer interfaces between optical internetworking elements and their internal components, reusing existing standards when applicable. The OIF PLL Working Group is guided by requirements developed by the Physical Layer User Group (PLUG) Working Group and Network Operators Working Group and OIF members.

GUEST SPEAKER
The meeting’s guest speaker, Scott Wilkinson, provided attendees with an overview of the pluggable coherent optical technologies market, including trends, forecasts, and expected changes.

“The OIF’s wildly successful 400ZR specification is largely responsible for the recent growth of 400Gbps coherent pluggables and the emergence of IP-over-DWDM as a valid network configuration,” said Wilkinson. “The group’s quarterly meetings are an invaluable source of information on what’s next in optical interfaces.”

 

About OIF

OIF is where the optical networking industry’s interoperability work gets done. Building on more than 20 years of effecting forward change in the industry, OIF represents the dynamic ecosystem of 130+ industry leading network operators, system vendors, component vendors and test equipment vendors collaborating to develop interoperable electrical, optical and control solutions that directly impact the industry’s ecosystem and facilitate global connectivity in the open network world. Connect with OIF at @OIForum, on LinkedIn and at http://www.oiforum.com.

 

PR Contact:

Leah Wilkinson

Wilkinson + Associates for OIF

Email: leah@wilkinson.associates

Office: 703-907-0010