Good morning

Thank you InThisThinRain
So we understand that Cisco works internally at upgrading their older Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) modulators.
 He did not say what’s up in external development efforts.

Again Dr. Suresh Venkatesan was instrumental in the development of SOI platform at Global Foundries.

Ok here we go:
 State-of-the-art (2019) integrated modulators used in optical links are:

InP-based electro-absorption modulators, mainly for short-distance communications (up to ~80 km (mostly VCSEL based Laser designs like Nvidia/Mellanox), 


Silicon-based photonic Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) modulators in pluggable modules (QSFP28) for <10 km-link-length interconnections (also in form factor 100GE CLR4, 100GE LR4 or 100GE ER4) 


3. LiNbO3-based MZ is for links over 100 km.

Mach–Zehnder design are the workhorse (Intel used it in it’s first generation Si photonics transceivers. POET too, for the lower speeds 100G & 200G, uses a Mach–Zehnder design, at higher speeds (400G) we'll see.


For exemple Intel is implementing a Silicon Microring Modulator with Integrated Thermo-Optic Resonance Tuning and is confident of being successful.

The race is happening here to, sweet!


Table 1| Comparison of modulators based on different material platforms in regard to Insertion loss performance

The race is happening here to, sweet, POET has already won the "Flip chip laser integration" can we win modulator race ?

Cheers