Acacia Communications Samples Industry's First Coherent CFP2-DCO Offering Four Times The Faceplate Capacity Of CFP-DCO

MAYNARD, MA--(Marketwired - Nov 7, 2016) - Acacia Communications (NASDAQ: ACIA), a leading provider of high-speed coherent optical interconnect products, today announced that it has started sampling its coherent CFP2-DCO module. Acacia's CFP2-DCO module incorporates Acacia's new low power digital signal processor (DSP) ASIC based on 16nm CMOS technology. The CFP2-DCO module offers a pluggable solution with four times the faceplate capacity of the CFP-DCO modules that Acacia is currently shipping in volume production. This capacity increase is achieved by reducing the width of the module by a factor of two and doubling the maximum data transmission rate from 100 Gbps to 200 Gbps.

The optical networking industry currently supports two different pluggable coherent architectures. Digital coherent optics, or DCO, modules incorporate a DSP ASIC internally and have a digital host interface similar to client optics, making it simpler to design into a host card. Analog coherent optics, or ACO, modules put the DSP ASIC outside the module on the host board and have an analog host interface. With the introduction of this CFP2-DCO module, Acacia is now able to offer the market both DCO and ACO solutions in the same form factor with similar capacity.

"We are proud that Acacia has been able to maintain the pace of developing a new DSP ASIC every year since 2011," said Benny Mikkelsen, Founder and CTO of Acacia Communications. "Our latest DSP ASIC, based on 16nm CMOS technology, offers higher performance with 200 Gbps operation and approximately half the power consumption in 100 Gbps mode when compared to our Sky DSP ASIC which we introduced two years ago. It is Acacia's extensive in-house expertise in designing low power DSP ASIC technology and silicon photonics that enables us to deliver high-performance pluggables in a small form factor like CFP2, extending our position as a market leader in the pluggable coherent space and helping our customers gain market share by enabling them to offer high capacity solutions." 

"The CFP2-DCO form factor requires significantly low power consumption for pluggable coherent optics and substantially increases faceplate density," said Axel Clauberg, ‎Vice President, Aggregation, Transport, IP Architecture at Deutsche Telekom AG. "This form factor requires low power DSP ASIC technology, which has been a key element of Acacia's DSP ASIC innovation. Pluggable DCO modules also enable interoperability, which Deutsche Telekom has continued to drive in the industry, as demonstrated in the Terastream project." 

The CFP2-DCO module supports a 100G data rate using QPSK modulation, as well as 200G modes using either 8QAM or 16QAM modulation. Each of these signals can fit within 50 GHz spaced channels, but the module also supports flexible wavelength tuning for gridless applications. Internal layer 1 encryption can be enabled for enhanced security applications.

About Acacia Communications
Acacia Communications develops, manufactures and sells high-speed coherent optical interconnect products that are designed to transform communications networks through improvements in performance, capacity and cost. By converting optical interconnect technology to a silicon-based technology, a process Acacia refers to as the "siliconization of optical interconnect," Acacia is able to offer products that meet the needs of cloud and service provider customers in a simple, open, high-performance form factor that can be easily integrated in a cost-effective manner with existing network equipment. www.acacia-inc.com.

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