The Cisco Optics Podcast is a series of conversations with experts in the pluggable optic transceiver industry. Pluggable optics are used in all modern Ethernet switches and routers and can be found in data centers, enterprise networks, campus networks, and service provider networks worldwide. Pat Chou is a product manager in Cisco's Transceiver Modules Group, also known as Cisco Optics.

Cisco Optics Podcast

Have you ever wondered why pluggable optics exist? Have you ever wondered what acronyms like QSFP, LR4, FEC, and PAM4 actually mean? In this first episode I start a conversation with my colleague Ray Nering. He explains to me how a lot of these came to be, starting from the days of 1Gb GBIC all the way up to today's 400Gb QSFP-DD. 
This is the first part of a four-episode conversation with Ray. In this episode we start at the beginning, with GBIC and SFP. He also talks about why pluggables were needed when they started and a whole bunch more.  
- Pat Chou, Cisco Optics Product Manager

Ray Nering is a colleague of mine in the Cisco Optics product management group and over the years has held senior management positions at other companies in the optics space, such as AT&T Microelectronics, Lucent, JDSU, Agere, Optium, and Lightwire.

Additional resources
Cisco Optics blogs: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog (subscribe at https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=CiscoOpticsBlog )
Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen
Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics

Timestamps
3:48 How did pluggable optics start
6:34 The problem with early non-pluggables
8:56 Pay as you grow model
11:00 What is SERDES
12:48 What happens when your data center grows

Music credits
Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html
Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

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Sunny Morning

How did we go from 1G to 400G? The history of pluggable optics, a conversation with Ray Nering 1/4

Have you ever wondered why pluggable optics exist? Have you ever wondered what acronyms like QSFP, LR4, FEC, and PAM4 actually mean? In this episode I continue my conversation with my colleague Ray Nering. He explains to me how a lot of these came to be, starting from the days of 1Gb GBIC all the way up to today's 400Gb QSFP-DD.Ê This is the second part of a four-episode conversation with Ray. In this episode we get into 10Gb pluggables and the drivers of next generation technology. 
Ð Pat Chou, Cisco Optics Product Manager

Ray Nering is a colleague of mine in the Cisco Optics product management group and over the years has held senior management positions at other companies in the optics space, such as AT&T Microelectronics, Lucent, JDSU, Agere, Optium, and Lightwire.

Additional resources
Cisco Optics blogs: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog (subscribe at https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=CiscoOpticsBlog )
Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen
Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics

Timestamps
02:05 Early 10G pluggables
09:17 When 10G SFP+ emerged
11:25 40G QSFP+ leverages 10G SERDES
14:50 Data center as industry driver
20:50 Next generation technology drivers

Music credits
Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html
Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

How did we go from 1G to 400G? The history of pluggable optics, a conversation with Ray Nering 2/4

Have you ever wondered why pluggable optics exist? Have you ever wondered what acronyms like QSFP, LR4, FEC, and PAM4 actually mean? In this episode I continue my conversation with my colleague Ray Nering. He explains to me how a lot of these came to be, starting from the days of 1Gb GBIC all the way up to today's 400Gb QSFP-DD. This is the third part of a four-episode conversation with Ray. In this episode we get into 100Gb pluggables and then the QSFP-DD form factor.
Pat Chou, Cisco Optics Product Manager

Ray Nering is a colleague of mine in the Cisco Optics product management group and over the years has held senior management positions at other companies in the optics space, such as AT&T Microelectronics, Lucent, JDSU, Agere, Optium, and Lightwire.

Additional resources
Cisco Optics blogs: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog (subscribe at https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=CiscoOpticsBlog )
Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen
Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics

Timestamps
02:06 4x bandwidth at 2.5x cost
06:25 Enter 100G modules
12:33 QSFP28 ramps in 2016
17:56 QSFP-DD form factor considerations

Music credits
Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html
Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

How did we go from 1G to 400G? The history of pluggable optics, a conversation with Ray Nering, 3/4

Have you ever wondered why pluggable optics exist? Have you ever wondered what acronyms like QSFP, LR4, FEC, and PAM4 actually mean? In this episode I continue my conversation with my colleague Ray Nering. He explains to me how a lot of these came to be, starting from the days of 1Gb GBIC all the way up to today's 400Gb QSFP-DD. This is the final part of a four-episode conversation with Ray. In this episode we get into complexity trends and coherent optics.
Pat Chou, Cisco Optics Product Manager

Ray Nering is a colleague of mine in the Cisco Optics product management group and over the years has held senior management positions at other companies in the optics space, such as AT&T Microelectronics, Lucent, JDSU, Agere, Optium, and Lightwire.

Additional resources
Cisco Optics blogs: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog (subscribe at https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=CiscoOpticsBlog )
Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen
Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics

Timestamps
2:07 PAM4
09:37 100G lambda MSA defines optical interfaces
12:37 Complexity trend accelerates
14:36 Pluggable coherent modules for data center interconnects
20:25 CMIS is needed for managing complicated modules

Music credits
Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html
Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

How did we go from 1G to 400G? The history of pluggable optics, a conversation with Ray Nering 4/4

What are the industry’s technical experts in pluggable optics thinking about today? What boundaries are the smartest minds are pushing to make the next generation of high-speed optics? In Episode 5, we start a new conversation with my esteemed colleague, Mark Nowell, Cisco Fellow. We begin with his own background, and then explore a brief history of standards in pluggable optics.
– Pat Chou, Cisco Optics Product Manager

Dr. Mark Nowell is a Cisco Fellow in Cisco’s “Optics and Optical Systems Group.” His focus is on next generation interconnect technology innovation to meet Cisco's needs. Mark is also active within the industry standards and forums and has chaired multiple IEEE 802.3 Ethernet projects. He represents Cisco on various industry alliances and Consortium.  Mark also chairs a number of industry MSA (Multi-source Agreement) groups focusing on next generation optical module form factors (QSFP-DD, QSFP-DD800) and optical interface signaling technology (100G Lambda MSA).

QSFP-DD Whitepaper, “Optimizing QSFP-DD Systems to Achieve at Least 25 Watt Thermal Port Performance”
http://www.qsfp-dd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021-QSFP-DD-MSA-Thermal-Whitepaper-Final.pdf

Additional resources
Cisco Optics blogs: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog (subscribe at https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=CiscoOpticsBlog )
Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen
Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics

Timestamps
2:40       Mark’s early education and career background
4:41       Joining Cisco
8:07       Ethernet standards bodies
10:57     IEEE standards process
13:13     The rise of consortiums and multisource agreements (MSAs)
15:14     Pluggable MSAs
16:18     100G optical MSAs

Music credits
Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html
Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

Overcoming the next hurdle to get to 800G pluggable optics, with Mark Nowell. 1 of 4.

Lasers have been around for over six decades. Since their invention, they have found their way into many applications that have changed our lives. Optical communications is of course one of them, and there are many that may surprise you. There is also still plenty of room to take laser performance to new heights, leading to even more new applications.  In Episode 37, we continue our conversation with laser and optics expert Juliet Gopinath, Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. We move on to her project with electrically tunable lenses and their application to 3D brain imaging in mice. – Pat Chou, Cisco Optics Product Manager  

Juliet Gopinath is the Alfred T. and Betty E. Look Professor of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering and Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder.   She received her B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at MIT. She was a member of technical staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 2005 to 2009.  Since then, she has led a research group at the University of Colorado Boulder.  Her current research interests include ultrafast lasers, nonlinear optics, mid-infrared materials, spectroscopy, orbital angular momentum and adaptive optical devices. She has published 78 peer-reviewed journal articles and over 97 conference presentations. She is the recipient of an R&D 100 Award (2012) and is an Optica Fellow.  She served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Photonics Society Journal (2011-2017), the Associate Director for Cubit (2019), and currently is an Associate Editor for Optica.  

Take Juliet’s course on Active Optical Devices for free! https://www.coursera.org/specializations/active-optical-devices  

Related links 
Cisco Optics-to-Device Compatibility Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/  
Cisco Optics-to-Optics Interoperability Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/iop  
Cisco Optics Product Information: https://copi.cisco.com/   

Additional resources 
Cisco Optics Podcast: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticspodcast  Cisco Optics blogs: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog  (subscribe at https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=CiscoOpticsBlog ) 
Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen  
Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics   
Timestamps 
2:58	Electrically tunable lens and prism 
3:50	Electrowetting 
4:54	Contact angle 
6:02	Density matched liquids 
8:00	3D brain imaging in mice  

Music credits Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

Cisco Optics Podcast Ep 37. Fascinating laser research projects you wish you thought of (3 of 9)

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