Infinera - Coherent Optical Technology from Subsea to the Access Edge

​Dr. Robert Maher
Sr. Director at Infinera
Head of the Optical Systems Group

​Dr. Dave Welch
Infinera co-founder
Chief Innovation Officer
member of the
​Board of Directors
​

Friday, July 15th, 1:00 pm (PDT) with
​Burgers from Kyle’s! Sponsored by Infinera.
Hosted in-person in Henley Hall 1010

About Infinera
Infinera is a global supplier of innovative open optical networking solutions that enable carriers, cloud operators, governments, and enterprises to scale network bandwidth, accelerate service innovation, and automate network operations. Infinera solutions deliver industry-leading economics and performance in long-haul, submarine, data center interconnect, and metro transport applications. To learn more about Infinera, visit www.infinera.com, follow on Twitter and LinkedIn, and subscribe for updates.

Robert Maher Bio:
Robert Maher, Ph.D. serves as Sr. Director and Head of the Optical Systems Group at Infinera. He has authored over 100 technical publications in the field of optical transmission technologies. He was awarded the Marie Curie Research Fellowship from the European Research Council (ERC) in 2010 and the University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society, UK, in 2016. In recognition of his technical contributions to the optical industry, he has been awarded Optica’s Paul F Foreman Team Engineering Excellence Award and the Colin Campbell Mitchell Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK). In 2015, he was elevated to Senior Member of the IEEE. Dr. Maher holds a B.Eng. in Electronic Engineering and a Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from Dublin City University, Ireland.

​Dave Welch Bio:
David F. Welch, Ph.D. co-founded Infinera in 2001, and serves as Chief Innovation Officer and member of the Board of Directors. He holds over 130 patents in optical transmission technologies, and has authored over 300 technical publications in the same field. In recognition of his technical contributions to the optical industry, he has been awarded the OSA’s Adolph Lomb Medal, Joseph Fraunhofer Award and John Tyndall Award, the IET’s JJ Thompson Medal for Achievement in Electronics, and the IEEE Ernst Weber Managerial Leadership Award. He is a Fellow of the OSA and the IEEE. In 2016, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Welch holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Delaware and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Event Summary:
Dr. Robert Maher gave an overview of Infinera’s product solutions, the evolution of their coherent optical engine, and their latest ICE6 product. He discussed the integration of the electronic and photonic chips and the advantages of probabilistic constellation shaping for fine tuning the spectral efficiency for a given SNR. Dr. Dave Welch discussed the advantages of point-to-multipoint optical links in cost, flexibility, and network simplification. He described the operating principles of their XR Optics Transceiver in these optical links.