UPDATE - Acacia Communications Samples Industry's First Coherent CFP2-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.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release includes statements concerning Acacia Communications and its future expectations, plans and prospects that constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For this purpose, any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the foregoing, the words "may," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "could," "intends," "target," "projects," "contemplates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential" or "continue" or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Acacia Communications has based these forward-looking statements largely on its current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that the Company believes may affect its business, financial condition and results of operations. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions including, without limitation, the Company's anticipated growth strategies, its expectations regarding competition, the anticipated trends and challenges in its business and the market in which Acacia Communications operates, its expectations regarding, and the stability of, its supply chain and manufacturing, the scope, progress, expansion and costs of developing and commercializing its products, the size and growth of the potential markets for its products and the ability to serve those markets, regulatory developments in the United States and foreign countries, including under export control laws or regulations that could impede its ability to sell its products to customers in certain foreign jurisdictions, and other risks set forth under the caption "Risk Factors" in its Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2016 filed with the SEC and its other SEC filings. Acacia Communications assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.