This event was held on Oct 14.

Notable comments from Ron Stone technical source manager at Facebook.

Operating Implications at Scale (slide 5) 

https://on24static.akamaized.net/event/26/71/51/1/rt/1/documents/resourceList1602538154608/robstone1602608221841.pdf 

RELIABILITY

Challenges for CPO vs Front Panel Pluggables

When we are thinking about Co-Packaged Optics clearly this is a new challenge that we need to embrace which is Co-Packaged Optics by definition are not serviceable.

So people have considered things like using external lasers or spare channels if the lasers are integrated into the co-package as possible options to mitigate failure modes.

Also in terms of reliability it is important for us to consider security of supply ecosystem of CPO. For this to be deployable at scale of supply chain redundancy. So that kind of implies as Mark (Cisco) was mentioning standardized interfaces….

He then goes on to  talk  about power and the need to maintain the existing network power footprint to allow for infrastructure reuse thus the need for Co-Packaged Optics.

So in nutshell what POET has achieved precisely aligns with what Facebooks needs are.

Using external lasers is the solution to isolate the heat and control the heat that they produce to avoid premature aging and failure of the laser.  But if this laser does fail it is swapped out. The lasers must have best in class coupling efficiency or the power budget cannot be met.

This is a circular argument that leads directly to POET.    

Recall a past post where Facebook talked about  the incidence of laser failures associated with 100G pluggables described as Dead On Arrival: reference https://agoracom.com/ir/POETTechnologies/forums/discussion/topics/748919-angeltech-virtual-live-i-pic-international-breakout/messages/2287630#message

Reference:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4qLJLl_KLA&feature=youtu.be