Silicon Photonics in Data Center Applications
Silicon Photonics in Data Center Applications
What is it?
Silicon photonics is the combination of a silicon integrated circuit and a semiconductor laser. This enables fast data transfers over long distances.
Graphic of data transfer from electrical signals converted into light through fiber optic cables and converted back to electrical signals.
The transceiver converts the data from the data center racks. The electrical signal is converted into light and transported along fiber optic cables.
The transceiver converts light back into an electrical signal. Photonics-based computing uses less energy and can transmit data faster than conventional approaches.
Why is it important?
The world’s data use is growing exponentially, driven by a variety of applications ranging from social networks and streaming media to genomics-driven medicine and the proliferation of connected devices within the “Internet of Things”.
Graphic rendition of 90% data rise over the last two years.
5X more data traffic occurs within data centers compared total internet traffic
How does Intel apply this technology?
Intel Silicon Photonics optical transceivers act as optical interfaces for Ethernet switches, routers, and transport networking equipment, providing connectivity for large scale cloud and enterprise data centers.
Graphic of different fiber optic cable types
Transceivers
100G SR4 Optical TransceiversSupports links up to 100 meters on multimode fiber »
100G SR4 Optical Transceivers
Supports 400GbE optical links over single-mode fiber or quad 100GbE optical links for breakout applications »
100G DR/FR/LR Transceivers
Supports up to 10km optical links over single-mode fiber »
100G CWDM4 QSFP28 Optical Transceivers
Small Form-factor, high-speed, and low power consumption Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing 4-lane transceiver »
100G PSM4 QSFP28 Optical Transceivers
Small Form-factor, high-speed, and low power consumption Parallel Single Mode fiber 4-lane transceiver »
- Enabling high-bandwidth, software-configurable access to compute and storage
- Permitting software defined infrastructure (SDI) deployments to decouple hardware and software resources for disaggregated data centers
- Allowing optical connectivity that interoperates with other technologies, such as Ethernet switches, Smart-NICs and FPGAs