Holistic co-design of coherent photonics, electronics, and packaging

Overview

The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) has developed a high-efficiency coherent optical link designed to enhance data transfer speeds and energy efficiency within modern datacenters. By utilizing a holistic co-design approach that integrates photonics, electronics, and packaging, this research addresses the limitations of current direct-detection technologies. The link enables superior throughput and robustness, making it particularly well-suited for emerging datacenter network architectures that leverage all-optical switching.

Technical specifications

• Link Performance: Achieves 200 Gbps single-wavelength transmission while consuming only 1.5 watts of power.
• Architecture: Employs an analog-coherent detection architecture that removes power-hungry digital-signal processing (DSP) functions typically required for long-reach links, offloading these processes to the analog-optical domain.
• Components: The assembly consists of four primary components: an electronic driver and a photonic transmitter chip on the transmitter side, and a photonic receiver and an electronic receiver chip on the receiver side.
• Wavelength Innovation: Operates at 1310 nm, which minimizes distortions from chromatic dispersion, rather than the 1550 nm typically used in long-haul communications.
• Integration: Features indium phosphide lasers integrated directly onto silicon chips, allowing the full receiver photonic integrated circuit (PIC) to be fabricated as a single unit.

Technology readiness level

4 The project has moved beyond conceptualization to the creation and demonstration of functional hardware prototypes. Researchers successfully designed, built, optimized, and measured the link components in a lab and research environment, supported by collaborations with industry partners, including Intel. The result was presented as a functional demonstration at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC).