Fabless silicon photonics firm of Carlsbad, CA, USA says that it has shipped more than 1 million silicon photonic PSM4 (parallel single-mode fiber 4-lane) transceiver products. TheLuxtera firm's patented technology combines the long-reach capabilities of single-mode fiber with low-cost transceivers, enabling the cost-effective scaling of cloud computing data centers.
A critical component of driving cost-effective optics inside the data center was the introduction of parallel single-mode (PSM) fiber-optic solutions, says Luxtera. Regarding standardization efforts to allow multi-vendor interoperability of PSM4, Luxtera was a founding member and drafter of the 100G-PSM4 multi-supplier agreement (MSA) in 2014, the first standard to enable silicon photonics interoperability with legacy DML (directly modulated laser) optical modules for PSM4 fiber without compromising the cost benefits of silicon photonics. Luxtera says that this MSA has the support of dozens of companies with PSM4 product offerings and is being deployed at scale by the major cloud computing operators. The firm adds that it has continued to drive further adoption of PSM4 for higher data rates, and has been standardized in IEEE 802.3bs, 200GBase-DR4 and 400GBase-DR4 specifications, creating a migration path to 400G.
Each Luxtera 100G PSM4 optical transceiver product includes four independently operating transmitter and receiver channels, integrating high-speed phase modulators, photodetectors, waveguides, grating couplers, high-speed electrical retimers, and integrated control circuitry, powered by a single integrated laser. These components combine into a fully integrated silicon photonics chipset or PSM4 optical engine with no additional external elements required. Luxtera says that it now has a broad customer base including major cloud datacenter operators, system OEMs, HPC (high-performance computing) operators, and many additional users.
VP of engineering Peter De Dobbelaere PhD is presenting on data-center photonics at the 4th Optical Interconnect in Data Centers EU-Symposium during the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC 2016) in Düsseldorf, Germany (19-21 September).