Modern IoT and 5G applications are driving the growth of Internet traffic and impose stringent requirements to datacenter operators for keeping pace with the increasing bandwidth and low-latency demands. At the same time, datacenters suffer from increasing number of interconnections dictating the deployment of novel architectures and high-radix switches. The ratification of 400 GbE standard is driving the market of optical transceivers nevertheless, a technology upgrade will be soon necessary to meet the tremendous traffic growth. In this paper, we present the development of 800 Gb/s and 1Tb/s optical transceivers migrating to 100 Gbaud per lane and employing wafer-scale bonding of InP membranes and InP-DHBT electronics as well as advanced co-packaging schemes. The InP membrane platform is also exploited for the development of novel ultra-fast optical space switches based on a modular architecture design for scaling to large number of I/O ports.
We present a scalable and novel modular optical metro core node architecture employing photonic WDM integrated switches. Multi-degree switching ROADM nodes are used at the metro-core level, while access network is constituted by low-cost ROADM nodes. Photonic integrated switches have been designed as the building blocks to realize this modular metro node architectures, namely photonic WDM space switches with express and add/drop ports, photonic integrated WSS aggregation/disaggregation functions for merging/dropping the network traffic, and photonic integrated multi-cast switch (MCS), to achieve, together with bandwidth variable transceivers aggregators, multi-Terabits/second operation per link. In particular, photonic WDM space switches and photonic integrated WSS are designed as building blocks to realize this novel modular metro node architectures. Moreover, dynamic re-configurable metro-access nodes based on low-cost photonic integrated mini-ROADMs will be presented. The lossless photonic WDM switches are based on InP technology and employ semiconductor optical amplifiers as on-chip gain element and for fast switching. The photonic WDM circuits allow to switch multiple format data signals in wavelength, space and time for full flexibility, scalability of the interconnected network elements, as well as capacity. Applications will be discussed and experimental results will be reported. Finally advances in compact photonic integrated InP switch design using the InP generic technology will be discussed.
Boosted by novel applications, to satisfy the scalable growth in both network traffic volume and connected endpoints while decreasing the cost and the energy consumption, transparent optical metro edge nodes and DC networks (DCNs) based on fast optical switches have been considered, featuring the data rate and format transparency and eliminating the power consuming O/E/O conversions. We present novel WDM photonic integrated switches with nanoseconds reconfiguration time and polarization independent operation. The WDM photonic integrated switches are capable to switching in the wavelength, space, and nanoseconds time domain to provide full flexibility and the required speed to achieve high throughput networks. Application to dynamic optical metro networks and optical DCN architectures based on distributed nanoseconds WDM photonics integrated switches will be presented.
An SDN reconfigurable metro-access network based on modular photonic integrated ROADM nodes with edgecomputing for beyond 5G application is demonstrated. Multi-degree switching ROADM nodes are used at the metrocore level, while access network is constituted by low-cost 2-degree ROADM nodes. Network scalability per node is met via a modular design where new modules are added in a pay-as-you grow manner to meet capacity demands. We present PIC for wavelength selective switches used in the metro-core network. Two distinct integration approaches i.e. monolithic on InP and hybrid integration of SiPh with InP are followed to enable low loss switching.
This article provides insight on two of the most relevant applications driving the design of the future MAN: the implementation of 5G by means of C-RAN (Cloud - Radio Area Network) and the deployment of edge computing. The work addresses important questions such as the target latency budget for future MANs, the target bandwidth requirements for 2020-2030 induced by 5G midhaul and fronthaul traffic, and describes how optical and electronics layers can co-operate to meet the QoS targets of C-RAN and edge computing traffic. In the process, we identify the key architectural elements to meet the challenges of these applications in a cost-effective way.
Innovative photonic solutions designed and developed in the H2020 research project PASSION are presented for the future metropolitan area network (MAN) supporting different aggregated data traffic volumes and operating at heterogenous granularities. System performance evaluated both by simulations and experimentation regarding the proposed vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) -based modular sliceable bandwidth/bitrate variable transceiver (S-BVT) are shown in realistic MANs organized by hierarchical levels with the crossing of multiple nodes characterized by new switching/aggregation technologies. The capabilities and challenges of the proposed cost-effective, energy-efficient and reduced footprint technological solutions will be demonstrated to face the request of huge throughput and traffic scalability.
We present a scalable and novel modular optical metro core node architecture and low cost metro access node architectures with edge computing functionalities employing photonic WDM integrated switches. Photonic integrated switches has been des igned as the building blocks to realize the modular metro node architectures, namely photonic WDM switches with express and add/drop ports, photonic integrated WSS aggregation/disaggregation functions for merging/dropping the network traffic, and photonic integrated multi-cast switch (MCS), as well as bandwidth variable transceivers aggregators to achieve multi-Terabits/second operation. Moreover, a dynamic re-configurable metro-access nodes based on low-cost 2-degree photonic integrated mini-ROADMs will be discussed. The lossless photonic WDM switches are based on InP technology and employ semiconductor optical amplifiers as on -chip gain element and fast switch. The photonic WDM circuits allows to switch multiple format data signals in wavelength, space, and time for full flexibility, scalability of the interconnected network elements as well as capacity. Applications to data center interconnects and 5G will be discussed and experimental results reported.
Many high performance computers (HPC) and cloud computing applications rely on distributing tasks among large numbers of virtual and real servers. This implies that advancements in performance of data centers and HPCs is increasingly dependent on connectivity. In order to insure high degree of connectivity at increasing bit rates and distances the demand for large bandwidth-distance product connections is increasing. These can almost exclusively be provided using optical interconnects. Traditionally optical-interconnect come in the form of pluggable transceivers. However the increases in number of connections and bit-rate poses a limit to further scaling (the front-plate bottleneck). A shift towards mid-board optics is in the making but requires solutions which are compact, power efficient and low cost for manufacturing. In this talk we will present our most recent demonstrations of high density optical interconnect solutions as well as high density switches. First some details about the design aspects and advantages of compact electronic switches employing mid-board optical engines will be discussed. Then, for addressing the challenge of low cost optical interconnects, we will give details on our recent work targeting high channel count VCSELs based sub-modules. Results based on 2.5D and 3D assembly on high resistivity silicon will be discussed as well as the use of direct die attach to flexible PCBs for making high density interconnects.
Sustained increases in capacity and connectivity are needed to overcome congestion in a range of broadband
communication network nodes. Packet routing and switching in the electronic domain are leading to unsustainable
energy- and bandwidth-densities, motivating research into hybrid solutions: optical switching engines are introduced for
massive-bandwidth data transport while the electronic domain is clocked at more modest GHz rates to manage routing.
Commercially-deployed optical switching engines using MEMS technologies are unwieldy and too slow to reconfigure
for future packet-based networking. Optoelectronic packet-compliant switch technologies have been demonstrated as
laboratory prototypes, but they have so far mostly used discretely pigtailed components, which are impractical for
control plane development and product assembly.
Integrated photonics has long held the promise of reduced hardware complexity and may be the critical step towards
packet-compliant optical switching engines. Recently a number of laboratories world-wide have prototyped optical
switching circuits using monolithic integration technology with up to several hundreds of integrated optical components
per chip. Our own work has focused on multi-input to multi-output switching matrices. Recently we have demonstrated
8×8×8λ space and wavelength selective switches using gated cyclic routers and 16×16 broadband switching chips using monolithic multi-stage networks. We now operate these advanced circuits with custom control planes implemented with
FPGAs to explore real time packet routing in multi-wavelength, multi-port test-beds. We review our contributions in the
context of state of the art photonic integrated circuit technology and packet optical switching hardware demonstrations.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.