#siliconphotonics

[nonitha]

Accelerating Data Transfer: The Growth of Silicon Photonics Pluggable Optical Transceivers Market

Market Overview: Silicon Photonics Pluggable Optical Transceivers Market

The Silicon Photonics Pluggable Optical Transceivers Market is witnessing significant growth driven by the increasing demand for high-speed data transmission and the expansion of data centers. These transceivers leverage silicon photonics technology to provide faster and more efficient data transfer, essential for supporting the growing internet traffic and cloud-based applications. The advancements in 5G networks and the adoption of IoT devices further contribute to the market's expansion.

[govindhtech]

Optical I/O Shines Intel’s OCI Chiplet Powers Next-Decade AI

First Integrated Optical I/O Chiplet

With integrated photonics technology, Intel Corporation has made significant progress towards high-speed data transmission. The first-ever fully integrated optical computing interconnect (OCI) chiplet, co-packaged with an Intel CPU and executing real data, was showcased by Intel’s Integrated Photonics Solutions (IPS) Group at the Optical Fibre Communication Conference (OFC) 2024. This chiplet is the most sophisticated in the industry. By enabling co-packaged optical input/output (I/O) in developing  AI infrastructure for data centres and high performance computing (HPC) applications, Intel’s OCI chiplet marks a significant advancement in high-bandwidth connection.

What It Does

This is the first OCI chiplet, intended to meet the increasing demands of  AI infrastructure for greater bandwidth, lower power consumption, and longer reach. It can support 64 channels of 32 gigabits per second (Gbps) data transmission in each direction on up to 100 metres of fibre optics. It makes it possible for CPU/GPU cluster connectivity to grow in the future and for innovative compute designs like resource disaggregation and coherent memory extension.

Why It Matters

Large language models (LLM) and generative  AI are two recent advancements that are speeding up the global deployment of AI-based applications. Machine learning (ML) models that are larger and more effective will be essential in meeting the new demands of workloads involving AI acceleration. Future  AI computing platforms will need to be scaled, which will require exponential expansion in I/O bandwidth and longer reach to support larger CPU/GPU/IPU clusters and architectures with more effective resource utilisation, like memory pooling and xPU disaggregation.

High bandwidth density and low power consumption are supported via electrical I/O, or copper trace connectivity, although its reach is limited to one metre or less. When employed in data centres and early  AI clusters, pluggable optical transceiver modules can expand reach at power and cost levels that are unsustainable for the scalability demands of AI workloads. AI/ML infrastructure scalability calls for co-packaged xPU optical I/O that can enable greater bandwidths with better power efficiency, longer reach, and low latency.

Electrical I/O

To use an analogy, switching from horse-drawn carriages, which had a limited capacity and range, to cars and trucks, which can transport much bigger amounts of products over much longer distances, is analogous to replacing electrical I/O with optical I/O in CPUs and GPUs to convey data. Optical I/O solutions such as Intel’s OCI chiplet could offer this kind of enhanced performance and energy efficiency to  AI scalability.

How It Works

The fully integrated OCI chiplet combines an electrical integrated circuit (IC) with a silicon photonics integrated circuit (PIC), which incorporates on-chip lasers and optical amplifiers, by utilising Intel’s field-proven silicon photonics technology. Although the OCI chiplet showcased at OFC was co-packaged with an Intel CPU, it can be combined with different system-on-chips (SoCs), GPUs, IPUs, and next-generation CPUs.

This initial OCI version is compatible with PCIe Gen5 and provides bidirectional data transmission rates of up to 4 terabits per second (Tbps). A transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) connection between two CPU platforms via a single-mode fibre (SMF) patch cord is shown in the live optical link demonstration. The demonstration shows the Tx optical spectrum with 8 wavelengths at 200 gigahertz (GHz) spacing on a single fibre, along with a 32 Gbps Tx eye diagram demonstrating strong signal quality. The CPUs generated and tested the optical Bit Error Rate (BER).

The current chiplet uses eight fibre pairs, each carrying eight dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) wavelengths, to provide 64 channels of 32 Gbps data in each direction up to 100 metres (though actual implementations may be limited to tens of metres due to time-of-flight latency). In addition to being incredibly energy-efficient, the co-packaged solution uses only 5 pico-Joules (pJ) per bit, as opposed to around 15 pJ/bit for pluggable optical transceiver modules.  AI’s unsustainable power requirements may be addressed with the help of this level of hyper-efficiency, which is essential for data centres and high-performance computing settings.

Concerning Intel’s Preeminence in Silicon Photonics

With over 25 years of in-house research from Intel Labs, the company that invented integrated photonics, Intel is a market leader in silicon photonics. The first business to create and supply industry-leading dependability silicon photonics-based connectivity solutions in large quantities to major cloud service providers was Intel.

The primary point of differentiation for Intel is their unmatched integration of direct and hybrid laser-on-wafer technologies, which result in reduced costs and increased reliability. Intel is able to preserve efficiency while delivering higher performance thanks to this innovative method. With over 8 million PICs and over 32 million integrated on-chip lasers shipped, Intel’s reliable, high-volume platform has a laser failures-in-time (FIT) rate of less than 0.1, which is a commonly used reliability metric that shows failure rates and the frequency of failures.

For use in 100, 200, and 400 Gbps applications, these PICs were installed in big data centre networks at prominent hyperscale cloud service providers in the form of pluggable transceiver modules. In development are next generation 200G/lane PICs to handle 800 Gbps and 1.6 Tbps applications that are only starting to gain traction.

Additionally, Intel is introducing a new fab process node for silicon photonics that offers significantly better economics, higher density, better coupling, and state-of-the-art (SOA) device performance. Intel keeps improving SOA performance, cost (more than 40% reduction in die size), power (more than 15% reduction), and on-chip laser performance.

What’s Next

This OCI chiplet from Intel is a prototype. Intel is collaborating with a small number of clients to co-package OCI as an optical I/O solution with their SoCs.

The OCI chiplet from Intel is a significant advancement in high-speed data transfer. Intel continues to be at the forefront of innovation and is influencing the future of connectivity as the  AI infrastructure landscape changes.

Read more on govindhtech.com

[alexanderrogge]

University of Pennsylvania - New chip opens door to AI computing at light speed:

ArtificialIntelligence #AI #NeuralNetwork #SiliconPhotonics #SiPh #Processor #VectorMatrixMultiplication #SpecialProjects #ComputerScience #Photonics #Physics

[industrytechnologyreports-blog]

Silicon Photonics Market Size To Reach $918.3 Million By 2025

The global silicon photonics market is expected to reach USD 918.3 million by 2025, according to a new report conducted by Grand View Research, Inc. The rapid emergence of commercial and consumer electronics applications is anticipated to revolutionize the market by 2025.

The IT and telecommunication application segment would dominate the sector in terms of market size over the forecast period. Silicon photonics devices find commercial applications in high-performance computers and data center applications. The silicon photonics technology offers a cost-effective and reliable solution to commercial applications.

The key value chain components for the silicon photonics system include raw material suppliers, component manufacturers (chip and optical interconnect fabrication firms), Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), server system distributors, and end-use segments. Silicon photonics has been a significant research arena since the last decade on account of potential benefits of the optoelectronics integration.

The market can be categorized based on application types into consumer electronics, IT & telecommunication, commercial, defense & security, and healthcare & life science verticals. Silicon photonics devices find commercial applications in high-performance computers and data center applications.

Small size and cost-effectiveness are the ideal features desired from silicon photonics, which is largely driving the growth of the silicon photonics market. Vendors provide solutions across a wide range of industries, such as mobile broadband Internet access, high-performance computing, data center and enterprise networking, and metro and long haul data communications, among many others.

To request a sample copy or view summary of this report, click the link below: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/silicon-photonics-market

Further key findings from the report suggest:

The industry     is predicted to grow as the products would rapidly gain traction. This is     attributed to the ability of products to be incorporated in different     application areas, such as IT and telecommunication, consumer electronics,     and commercial.

The     increasing demand for active optical cables, optical multiplexers, and     optical attenuators provides numerous growth opportunities as they offer     considerable options to attain low-cost economies

The North     American region dominated the marketplace, accounting for the largest     global market share (in terms of revenue) in 2015

The key     industry participants include Cisco Systems Inc., Finisar Corporation,     Intel Corporation, Mellanox Technologies, and Molex Incorporated

See More Reports of This Category: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry/semiconductors

About Grand View Research:

Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare.

[royalvoxpost]

#Nanotech #SiliconPhotonics: researchers have been able to manipulate the morphology and structural parameters of 2D random fractal arrays of silicon nanowires. Their findings could accelerate the development of ultra-compact silicon-based optoelectronics https://t.co/fFpXfWF2gM https://t.co/CsxROJNZvy

#Nanotech #SiliconPhotonics: researchers have been able to manipulate the morphology and structural parameters of 2D random fractal arrays of silicon nanowires. Their findings could accelerate the development of ultra-compact silicon-based optoelectronics https://t.co/fFpXfWF2gM pic.twitter.com/CsxROJNZvy

— The Royal Vox Post (@RoyalVoxPost) July 30, 2020

via Twitter https://twitter.com/RoyalVoxPost July 30, 2020 at 10:15PM

[dailytechnologynews]

Toward a reconfigurable optical switch ("Optical FPGA")

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1811/1811.08490.pdf

Not sure if this is too technical, but I came across this paper co-authored with someone in Intel's photonics product group about efforts toward an optical field-programmable gate array (FPGA).

One thing that photonic integrated circuits (PICs) don't have right now is a way to "store" information, making complex computations impossible. Why would you want to use PICs for computations? For one, mathematical rotations and certain other functions can be implemented in optical circuits and require zero power to perform, while proceeding at the speed of light. NVidia and AMD should be very interested.

What is demonstrated

The authors demonstrate the use of a phase change material (PCM) called a chalcogenide to direct light in an optical waveguide down one of two paths. This material can be changed between two states, "crystalline" and "amorphous", by the application of differing amounts of heat. The crystalline state is highly ordered on the atomic level and has a higher index of refraction, while the amorphous state has no atomic order and has a lower index of refraction. The material is in the same class as Intel/Micron's 3D X-point technology.

The PCM sits on top of one branch of a 1-by-2 switch, a Y-shaped circuit in which the input is directed toward one of the two branches. A 2-by-2 switch is also shown. The first branch is a continuation of the input waveguide, while the second branch with the PCM is physically separated from the input, but runs parallel to it for a certain length. This latter branch is referred to by the authors as the hybrid waveguide (HW). When the PCM is crystalline, the index of refraction mismatch between the input and the output HW is large and light prefers to take the branch without the PCM. When the PCM is amorphous, the index of refraction mismatch is lower, allowing light to pass into the HW branch.

Why does index of refraction matter? This property controls the wavelength of the light in the waveguide. The HW branch geometry is optimized (using computers) for when the PCM is amorphous by making it so that:

A wave continuing to travel along the input branch would have a hard time doing so

A wave that hops to the HW can do so easily. The authors refer to this as the "phase matching condition"

Other thoughts

Chalcogenides being used for optical applications isn't new. In fact, chalcogenides were used in CD/DVD technology back in the 90s and 00s. What is new is the integration of PCM into a one-layer switch that has very good performance - over a factor of 10 selectivity between the two branches.

Finally, the authors don't go all the way to create a self-contained circuit; they use an oven to switch the state of the PCM. They could have added miniature electric heaters, usually just long, narrow metal wires, over the PCM to control the phase back and forth.

Finally, a (mod approved) plug for /r/siliconphotonics if you found this interesting!

[alexanderrogge]

Tobias Mann - Intel shows off 8-core, 528-thread processor with 1TB/s of co-packaged optics:

Intel #HotChips #SiliconPhotonics #Photonics #Microprocessor #DieInterconnect #RISC #ComputeArchitecture #TSMC #GraphAnalytics #DARPA #SpecialProjects #PerformanceScaling #ComputerScience #Physics

[royalvoxpost]

#SiliconPhotonics: scientists have designed silicon photonic circuits that can be programmed on demand by a post-fabrication process. The breakthrough could help develop configurable, low cost and low power consumption silicon photonic devices - https://t.co/NPHkmX8jBz https://t.co/8cV40x4hCk

#SiliconPhotonics: scientists have designed silicon photonic circuits that can be programmed on demand by a post-fabrication process. The breakthrough could help develop configurable, low cost and low power consumption silicon photonic devices - https://t.co/NPHkmX8jBz pic.twitter.com/8cV40x4hCk

— The Royal Vox Post (@RoyalVoxPost) May 28, 2020

via Twitter https://twitter.com/RoyalVoxPost May 28, 2020 at 08:31PM

[royalvoxpost]

#SiliconPhotonics #Optoelectronics: researchers have designed an ultrasmall, fast, stable, and highly efficient silicon-based electro-optical modulator. The compact device could be used to boost the performance of fiber-optic networks - https://t.co/qrJMjvppR2 https://t.co/S2ewzqlJ7F

#SiliconPhotonics #Optoelectronics: researchers have designed an ultrasmall, fast, stable, and highly efficient silicon-based electro-optical modulator. The compact device could be used to boost the performance of fiber-optic networks - https://t.co/qrJMjvppR2 pic.twitter.com/S2ewzqlJ7F

— The Royal Vox Post (@RoyalVoxPost) April 13, 2020

via Twitter https://twitter.com/RoyalVoxPost April 14, 2020 at 12:27AM