On September 23, 2024, IPEC announced that it has completed the formulation of three optoelectronic standards in cutting-edge fields on the eve of ECOC 2024 in Frankfurt. Also, it re-attended ECOC and organized booths and "Product Focus" technical seminar with its member partners, where they discussed the evolution of next-generation optoelectronic technologies with industry experts.
IPEC is an international standards organization registered in Switzerland. It has five technical research work groups focusing on the standardization and strategic roadmap research of solutions in optical chips, optical/electrical components, optical modules, and other related fields. The goal is to address the optoelectronic needs of market applications such as 5G, IoT, and AI. Over the past few years, IPEC has been promoting optoelectronic standardization in two directions:
1. Research on AI-oriented advanced optoelectronic standards, including 800G/1.6T optical module implementation protocols, 1.6T chip solutions based on silicon photonics, VCSEL, and InP solutions, OIO PELS solution, and LPO optical module technology
2. For 5G-A next-generation fronthaul standards, focus on resolving problems and challenges in fronthaul scenarios and promoting fronthaul optoelectronic standardization innovation and industry application. In 2023, IPEC released White Paper on Survey of Optical Modules in Wireless Fronthaul, and completed the formulation of 50G fronthaul specifications in 2024.
In September 2024, the IPEC Council officially approved and released three standards: 50 Gb/s Duplex & BIDI PMD Implementation Agreement (prepared by the PMD WG), Test Specifications for 800 Gbit/s PAM4 Optical Module at 100 Gbit/s per Lane (prepared by the Plugfest WG), and OIO Pluggable External Laser Source (PELS) Implementation Agreement (prepared by the Form Factor WG).
These IPEC standards documents can be downloaded from the IPEC official website at https://www.ipec-std.org/data-download. Industry partners are welcome to query and refer to the documents.
Optical connectivity is a critical component of AI infrastructure. The exponential growth of AI data sets and LLM model size, complex neural networks, and the need for real-time analytics demand highly efficient, fast, and reliable data transmission. To improve bandwidth utilization, we need to upgrade optoelectronic components and bearer networks to higher rates, such as 200 Gbps/lane, 400 Gbps/lane, 1.6 Tbps, and 3.2 Tbps. How to cope with the power consumption and cost issues caused by the increase in the optical connectivity rate? As shown by current application of intelligent computing centers, the reliability of optical connectivity is critical to the computing efficiency of AI models. In this case, the solution to further enhance the reliability of optical modules is one of the most important factors that determine the optimal solution of the next-generation optical connectivity.
To discuss issues like optical connectivity reliability in AI scenarios, IPEC held a technical seminar titled "Special Requirements for Optical Connectivity in AI Clusters" at ECOC Product Focus on September 24. By doing so, it expects to continuously promote and follow up the evolution of optoelectronic technologies with higher rates and reliability.
IPEC is a member-driven open standards organization. Its members come from the entire optoelectronic industry chain, including industry partners from various fields. Such diversity enables IPEC to quickly identify and follow up market trends and requirement changes. IPEC will discuss these hot topics with industry-leading experts, which can boost mutual trust and cooperation, thereby forming a sound industry ecosystem. Industry experts are welcome to visit the C102 IPEC booth.
About IPEC
IPEC (www.ipec-std.org) is an international standards organization that is committed to developing open optoelectronic standards and delivering strategic roadmap reports. IPEC focuses on standardizing solutions in optical chips, optical/electrical components, and optical modules. Markets addressed by IPEC include 5G, IoT and AI.
IPEC is registered in Switzerland and is open to any interested party. All members have the opportunity to participate in the formulation of IPEC standards on a fair and transparent basis.
