Mark Nowell

Cisco Fellow

Optics and Optical Group

Mark Nowell is a Cisco Fellow in Cisco’s Optics and Optical team. 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. Mark chairs a number of industry MSA (Multi-source Agreement) groups focusing on next generation optical module form factors (QSFP-DD) and optical interface signaling technology (100G Lambda MSA).

Articles

SP360: SERVICE PROVIDER

Mark Nowell

Keeping Cool with QSFP-DD800 Optics

History has been very clear that for broad industry adoption of the 800G generation, an optical pluggable form factor must be judged on: (1) Backwards compatibility with previous generation optics (2) 100G+ electrical performance (3) Excellent thermal power dissipation The recent QSFP-DD MSA updates ensure all of these, but I’d like to focus on the […]

DATA CENTER

Mark Nowell

In Praise of the QSFP – from 40GbE to 400GbE and Beyond

Cisco is building and testing QSFP-DD systems and modules capable of driving 400GbE Ethernet electrical interfaces and cooling 20W modules with margin to address thermal and high-speed electrical challenges. These advances for the 400GbE are not at the limits of what is possible. Further innovation will reduce power as chips move to 7nm from the current 16nm processes.