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.

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 consortiums. Mark also chairs a number of industry Multi-source Agreement groups focusing on next generation optical module form factors such as QSFP-DD and QSFP-DD800, and optical interface signaling technology like the 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 Podcast episodes: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticspodcast
Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen
Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics

Timestamps
2:16 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 | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html
Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com