Performance of high performance computers and data centers is limited by the bandwidth of the network that connects individual servers together. Electrical links, while inexpensive, push against the fundamental signal integrity limits and are limited in line rates. At the same time, optical solutions remain expensive, making them undesirable in the volumes that data centers and supercomputers require. Silicon photonics is a disruptive technology with the potential to enable >100Gb/s line rates at a cost-effective price point. However, traditional silicon photonic approaches will fall short of the required bandwidth, power, and cost requirements needed for a 1Tb/s optical interconnect module. In this program, Ayar Labs will develop a 1Tb/s optical module technology developed out of MIT, UC Berkeley, and CU Boulder, which has produced working silicon for a 8 Gb/s x 11-wavelength transceiver in a commercial CMOS foundry. The technology uses optical ring resonators as an alternative device technology to overcome the bandwidth density, power, and cost barriers faced by traditional silicon photonic approaches to network interconnects. During Phase I, Ayar Labs will explore new device and circuit designs towards the commercialization of the university research. Specific technical objectives of Phase I include the design of improved photodetectors, control circuitry, and link SERDES. The developed components will be incorporated into a link prototype chip to be designed and sent for manufacturing prior to the end of Phase I. The Phase I objectives are crucial towards a customer-focused demonstration of our technology and a path towards our Phase II development goal of a 1 Tb/s optical transceiver module. Ayar Labs, Inc. will develop a 1 Tb/s optical link to enable reliable, energy-efficient, ultra-high bandwidth optical interconnects for next-generation warehouse-scale data centers and supercomputers. Commercial Applications and Other
Benefits: Ayar Labs, Inc. will sell its 1 Tb/s optical module to the owners of supercomputers and warehouse-scale data centers, to enable significant reductions in energy use of these data center systems, as well as higher performance as systems become able to support bigger networks with more connectivity between data center components. In the longer-term, Ayar Labs will sell its technology for high-performance, energy-efficient optical solutions to partner companies to integrate into their products such as switches, routers, processors, memory, and in the longer-term, even mobile and internet-of-things devices.
