Leveraging silicon photonics for the data center, designers now have a single-chip solution for 800 Gb/s transmission.

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/dustphotonics-claims-first-to-develop-800g-silicon-photonics-chip/

DustPhotonics has announced its single-chip 800G-DR8 silicon photonics chip for data center applications, representing a major milestone in practical photonics for data centers. The company claims its single-chip solution offers a high-performance yet simple-to-implement solution for system architects.

DustPhotonics’ 800G-DR8 photonic integrated circuit offers a single-chip solution for fiber-copper interconnects in data center and AI applications. Image used courtesy of DustPhotonics

While photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have been used for some time in high-bandwidth and high-efficiency applications, not all processes are built alike. Some photonics processes make use of gallium- or indium-based wide bandgap semiconductors. Alternatively, DustPhotonics advancements are based on silicon photonics, which opens the door to silicon's more mature and scalable processes.

To give readers a glimpse into the technology behind DustPhotonics’ latest PIC, this article takes a closer look at the photonics technology built into the system and the advantages of moving toward a single-chip solution for data center applications.

Data Centers Require a High-Bandwith Solution

As the amount of data flowing through data centers continues to increase, limited transfer speeds impose processing bottlenecks. Traditional copper-based wiring schemes, while sufficient for many applications, cannot support the bandwidth and efficiency demands that the next generation of data centers will need. 

This becomes especially true with 800 Gb/s transmission on the horizon and even more so when looking toward the future of 1.6 Tb/s and 3.2 Tb/s data rates. As such, designers are investigating photonics to improve the bandwidth and efficiency of data center communications.

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