Introduction: Among the many presentations on Silicon Photonics (SiPh) at the excellent 2013 Open Server Conference, two were of special interest: Joel Goergen of Cisco called for a radically new data center architecture that used SiPh to interconnect components and modules, rather than circuit cards or racks of equipment. Mario Paniccia of Intel focused on using SiPh for rack level interconnects, but called attention to total solution cost as a critical issue to be solved. The other presentations – from SiPh component vendors, potential customers (Oracle), and a market researcher (Ovum)- all agreed on the promise and potential of SiPh, but differed greatly on the technology details, link distance, receiver vs transceiver, and “sweet spot” for a volume market. Silicon Photonics is a new approach to using light (photons) to move huge amounts of data at very high speeds with extremely low power over a thin optical fiber rather than using electrical signals over a copper cable. It’s been in the research stage at Intel for over 10 years, while a few component/module companies have already shipped SiPh receivers (but not integrated transmitter/receivers or transceivers yet). For a description of all the SiPh (and other) presentations at the 2013 Open Server […]
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