Fabless integrated silicon photonics system-on-a-chip company Skorpios Technologies Inc of Albuquerque, NM, USA has launched what is claimed to be an industry-first 100G-CWDM system-on-chip fully integrated optoelectronic S-roC receiver IC and S-toC transmitter IC. The firm is conducting the first live demonstration of its S-xoC family of 100G-CWDM solutions at the Optical Fiber Communication conference & exposition (OFC 2015) in Los Angeles (24-26 March). S-xoC 100G-CWDM ICs integrate silicon photonics optical ICs, transmit and receive electronic ICs and a single-mode fiber (SMF) coupling all in one dense semiconductor IC package.
The data-center market is poised to deploy 100G networking in large volume, says Skorpios. The demand for SMF duplex fiber infrastructure; low power, high-density scalability to 400G; and commodity economics is higher than ever. The S-xoC family gives large enterprises greater supply chain flexibility and cost savings, adds the firm. For the first time, Skorpios is providing a semiconductor package with all optics, electronics and fiber-coupling solutions, applicable to edge-pluggable, embedded, backplane or other proprietary applications that suits the customer's cloud architecture.
"We project a quickly ramping demand for cost-effective, single-mode 100GbE links in the largest data centers," comments Dale Murray, principal analyst for LightCounting Market Research. "Complete system-on-chip packaging of a CWDM optical engine with fiber coupling should offer packaging flexibility and the potential to meet demanding cost expectations," he adds.
"Silicon photonics needs to enable more than simply moving some optical discrete functions from high-cost, low-yielding III-V processes to CMOS," says Samir Desai, Skorpios' VP of sales & business development. "With our S-xoC family of fully integrated optoelectronics solutions, customers can, for the first time, realize the true value of the fabless semiconductor business model in the optical communications market," he adds. "The 100G data-center optics market is the ideal first application of Skorpios' S-xoC. We are excited to offer a roadmap that leads to true monolithic integration of terabit optoelectronics."
