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
Cisco Optics Podcast Episode 5
Overcoming the next hurdle to get to 800G pluggable optics, a conversation with Mark Nowell, part 1 of 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
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
Cisco Optics Podcast Episode 6
Overcoming the next hurdle to get to 800G pluggable optics, a conversation with Mark Nowell, part 2 of 4.
What are the industry’s technical experts in pluggable optics thinking about today? What are the technical boundaries that the smartest minds are pushing past to make the next generation of high speed optics? In episode 6, we continue a conversation with my esteemed colleague, Mark Nowell. In this second part of our four-part conversation we delve into thermal considerations, which he’s been thinking and writing about lately.
– Pat Chou, Cisco Optics Product Manager
Timestamps
2:20 Thermals and cooling of modules
3:21 Why it’s an issue
4:20 A consequence of leaf-spine data center architecture
6:10 ASIC driving large number of ports
6:49 The problem for optics
7:28 Comparison with 10G ports in the past
8:26 A module the size of a laptop
10:31 Single 400G form factor for both service providers and webscale data centers
12:33 Advanced technology in single common 400G form factor
14:00 Comparison with 10G
16:01 Backward compatibility of form factors
Cisco Optics Podcast Episode 7
Overcoming the next hurdle to get to 800G pluggable optics, a conversation with Mark Nowell, part 3 of 4.
What are the industry’s technical experts in pluggable optics thinking about today? What are the technical boundaries that the smartest minds are pushing past to make the next generation of high speed optics? In episode 7, we continue a conversation with my esteemed colleague, Mark Nowell. In this third part of our four-part conversation we continue on the topic of thermal considerations, which he’s been thinking and writing about lately.
– Pat Chou, Cisco Optics Product Manager
Timestamps
2:10 Importance of cost
2:44 The coherent factor
5:58 System design perspective
6:42 Why thermals are so important to the optics
8:18 How to cool
9:37 Cages
11:46 Naysayers
Cisco Optics Podcast Episode 8
Overcoming the next hurdle to get to 800G pluggable optics, a conversation with Mark Nowell, part 4 of 4.
What are the industry’s technical experts in pluggable optics thinking about today? What are the technical boundaries that the smartest minds are pushing past to make the next generation of high speed optics? In episode 8, we continue a conversation with my esteemed colleague, Mark Nowell. In this final part of our four-part conversation we conclude our discussion about thermal considerations. He cites a useful whitepaper on the QSFP-DD website which provides detailed design guidelines.
– Pat Chou, Cisco Optics Product Manager
Timestamps
2:10 System level considerations
4:47 Where are thermals more of a problem?
6:50 QSFP-DD thermal whitepaper
9:22 QSFP-DD module shape
10:35 The nose
11:43 The fins
12:05 Air flow
15:50 Back to the thermal whitepaper
22:17 QSFP-DD 800G MSA
Music credits
Sunny Morning by FSM Team
Upbeat by Mixaund