Inside Petal: Building the World’s First Petabit-Class Transoceanic Subsea Cable

This post details the engineering behind Petal, Meta's first petabit-class transoceanic subsea cable. It highlights the transition to multi-core fiber technology (2-core fiber) to achieve 1 Pbps capacity, doubling previous generations. Key technical challenges and solutions discussed include minimizing crosstalk between cores in the fiber and the design of a single-body 96-amp repeater using a Fan-In/Fan-Out (FIFO) interface to manage amplification for 2-core fiber. The post also touches on the manufacturing advancements required from partners like NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries to produce this next-generation infrastructure.