COBO adds co-packaged optics to its agenda

The Consortium of On-Board Optics (COBO) is progressing with its work to create specifications for co-packaged optics.

The decision to address co-packaged optics by an organisation established to promote on-board optics reflects the significant industry interest co-packaged optics has gained in the last year.

So says Brad Booth, director, leading edge architecture pathfinding team in Azure hardware systems and infrastructure at Microsoft.

Source: COBO

The COBO work also complements that of the OIF which has set up its own co-packaged optics framework. 

“We have a different collection of members [to the OIF],” says Booth. “Our members are very strong on optical connectivity and materials whereas the OIF is known for its electrical interface work and module activities like 400ZR.”

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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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Co-packaged optics to debut with 25.6 terabit switch chips

The second article in a series on co-packaged optics.

Part 2: Broadcom - a switch-chip vendor 

The hyperscalers require ever more switching capacity in their data centres to scale the applications they run. A hierarchy of connected switches fitted with optical interfaces is used to provide the pathways that link the tens of thousands of servers found in data centres.

Silicon vendors are responding to this need by doubling the capacity of their switch chips every two years. The largest switch chips have a 12.8-terabit capacity and the first 25.6-terabit devices are expected next year. This relentless pace, however, is one that the optical module makers are struggling to match. 

Source: Gazettabyte

“It is a problem for the optics industry,” says Robert Stone, Distinguished Engineer at leading switch chip player, Broadcom. “The cadence at which we can evolve silicon generally moves a lot faster than the optics guys can monetise a generation of investment, and then reinvest it.”

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DustPhotonics reveals its optical transceiver play

A start-up that has been active for a year has dropped its state of secrecy to reveal it is already shipping its first optical transceiver product.

The company, DustPhotonics, is backed by private investors and recently received an undisclosed round of funding that will secure the company’s future for the next two years.  

Product plans

DustPhotonics' first product is the multi-mode 100m-reach 100GBASE-SR4 QSFP28. The company will launch its first 400-gigabit optical modules later this year. 

Ben Rubovitch

“We probably are going to be one of the first to market with [400-gigabit] QSFP-DD and OSFP multi-mode solutions,” says Ben Rubovitch, CEO of DustPhotonics.

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COBO: specification work nearing completion

The Consortium for On-board Optics (COBO) is on target to complete its specifications work by the year end. The work will then enter a final approval stage that will take up to a further three months.

On-board optics, also known as mid-board or embedded optics, have been available for years but vendors have so far had to use custom products. The goal of COBO, first announced in March 2015 and backed by such companies as Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Finisar and Intel, is to develop a technology roadmap and common specifications for on-board optics to ensure interoperability.

Brad Booth (pictured), the chair of COBO and principal architect for Microsoft’s Azure Global Networking Services, says that bringing optics inside systems raises a different set of issues compared to pluggable optical modules used on the front panel of equipment. “If you have a requirement for 32 ports on a faceplate, you know mechanically what you can build,” says Booth.

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Intel's 100-gigabit silicon photonics move

Intel has unveiled two 100-gigabit optical modules for the data centre made using silicon photonics technology.

Alexis Bjorlin

The PSM4 and CWDM4/CLR4 100-gigabit modules mark the first commercial application of a hybrid integration technique for silicon photonics, dubbed heterogeneous integration, that Intel has been developing for years.

Intel's 100-gigabit module announcement follows the news that Juniper Networks has entered into an agreement to acquire start-up, Aurrion, for $165 million. Aurrion is another silicon photonics player developing this hybrid integration technology for its products. 

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