Enabling 800-gigabit optics with physical layer ICs

Broadcom recently announced a family of 800-gigabit physical layer (PHY) chips. The device family is the company’s first 800-gigabit ICs with 100-gigabit input-output (I/O) interfaces.

Source: Broadcom

Moving from 50-gigabit to 100-gigabit-based I/O enables a new generation of 800-gigabit modules aligned with the latest switch chips.

“With the switch chip having 100-gigabit I/Os, PHYs are needed with the same interfaces,” says Machhi Khushrow, senior director of marketing, physical layer products division at Broadcom.

Broadcom’s latest 25.6 terabit-per-second (Tbps) Tomahawk 4 switch chip using 100-gigabit I/O was revealed at the same time.

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The compound complexity of co-packaged optics

Part 1: The OIF’s co-packaging initiative

Large-scale data centres consume huge amounts of power; one building on a data centre campus can consume 100MW. But there is a limit as to the overall power that can be supplied.

Jeff Hutchins

The challenge facing data centre operators is that networking, used to link the equipment inside the data centre, continues to consume more and more power.

That means less power remains for the servers; the compute that does the revenue-generating work.

This is forcing a rethink regarding networking and explains the growing interest in co-packaged optics, a technique that effectively adds optical input-output (I/O) to a chip.

Two industry organisations - the OIF and The Consortium for On-Board Optics (COBO) - have each started work to identify the requirements needed for co-packaged optics adoption.

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Silicon Photonics spills over into new markets

Part 1: Yole market analysis

The market for silicon photonics is set to grow eightfold by 2025.

So claims market research firm, Yole Développement, in its latest report on silicon photonics, a technology that enables optical components to be made on a silicon substrate.

Silicon photonics is also being used in new markets although optical transceivers will still account for the bulk of the revenues in 2025.

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Ethernet Alliance on 800G and the next Ethernet rate

It may have taken the industry five years to get 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) modules shipping, but for Mark Nowell, Advisory Board Chair at the Ethernet Alliance, the long gestation period is understandable given the innovation that has been required.

Mark Nowell

The industry has had to cram complex technology into a small form factor for 400GbE while meeting the requirements of two very different end-customers: webscale players and communications service providers.

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Intel combines optics to its Tofino 2 switch chip

Part 1: Co-packaged Ethernet switch 

The advent of co-packaged optics has moved a step closer with Intel’s demonstration of a 12.8-terabit Ethernet switch chip with optical input-output (I/O).  

Source: Intel.

The design couples a Barefoot Tofino 2 switch chip to up to 16 optical ‘tiles’ - each tile, a 1.6-terabit silicon photonics die - for a total I/O of 25.6 terabits.

“It’s an easy upgrade to add our next-generation 25.6-terabit [switch chip] which is coming shortly,” says Ed Doe, Intel’s vice president, connectivity group, general manager, Barefoot division. 

Intel acquired switch-chip maker, Barefoot, seven months ago after which it started the co-packaging optics project.

Intel also revealed that it is in the process of qualifying four new optical transceivers - a 400Gbase-DR4, a 200-gigabit FR4, a 100-gigabit FR1 and a 100Gbase-LR4 - to add to its portfolio of 100-gigabit PSM4 and CWDM4 modules.

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ECOC 2019 industry reflections

Gazettabyte is asking industry figures for their thoughts after attending the recent ECOC show, held in Dublin. In particular, what developments and trends they noted, what they learned and what, if anything, surprised them. Here are the first responses from Huawei, OFS Fitel and ADVA.  

James Wangyin, senior product expert, access and transmission product line at Huawei  

At ECOC, one technology that is becoming a hot topic is machine learning. There is much work going on to model devices and perform optimisation at the system level.

And while there was much discussion about 400-gigabit and 800-gigabit coherent optical transmissions, 200-gigabit will continue to be the mainstream speed for the coming three-to-five years.  

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Companies gear up to make 800 Gig modules a reality

Nine companies have established a multi-source agreement (MSA) to develop optical specifications for 800-gigabit pluggable modules.

Maxim Kuschnerov

The MSA has been created to address the continual demand for more networking capacity in the data centre, a need that is doubling roughly every two years. The largest switch chips deployed have a 12.8 terabit-per-second (Tbps) switching capacity while 25.6-terabit and 51-terabit devices are in development. 

“The MSA members believe that for 25.6Tbps and 51.2Tbps switching silicon, 800-gigabit interconnects are required to deliver the required footprint and density,” says Maxim Kuschnerov, a spokesperson for the 800G Pluggable MSA.

A 1-rack-unit (1RU) 25.6-terabit switch platform will use 32 such 800-gigabit modules while a 51.2-terabit 2RU platform will require 64.

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