ECOC 2023 industry reflections - Part 3

Gazettabyte is asking industry figures for their thoughts after attending the recent ECOC show in Glasgow. In particular, what developments and trends they noted, what they learned and what, if anything, surprised them. Here are responses from Coherent, Ciena, Marvell, Pilot Photonics, and Broadcom.

Near the River Clyde in Glasgow, where ECOC was held, was once the shipbuilding centre of the world.

Julie Eng, CTO of Coherent

It had been several years since I'd been to ECOC. Because of my background in the industry, with the majority of my career in data communications, I was pleasantly surprised to see that ECOC had transitioned from primarily telecommunications, and largely academic, into more industry participation, a much bigger exhibition, and a focus on datacom and telecom. There were many exciting talks and demos, but I don't think there were too many surprises.

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ECOC 2023 industry reflections - Part 2

Gazettabyte is asking industry figures for their thoughts after attending the recent ECOC show in Glasgow. In particular, what developments and trends they noted, what they learned and what, if anything, surprised them. Here are more responses from LightCounting, Hyper Photonix, NewPhotonics, and Broadcom.

Vladimir Kozlov, CEO of LightCounting, a market research company

Demand for optical connectivity in data centres has accelerated innovation in the industry. ECOC 2023 offered numerous start-ups and established vendors another opportunity to disclose their latest achievements.

The improved reliability of quantum dot lasers was a pleasant surprise. Alfalume presented the latest quantum dot comb laser developments, including continuous power up to 250 mW with a power conversion efficiency of a quarter (25%) and efficient operation of up to 100oC. Preliminary test data suggests that quantum dot lasers offer superior reliability compared to their quantum well counterparts. It would be great to have a reliable laser source, finally.

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The computing problem of our time: Moving data

• Celestial AI's Photonic Fabric technology can deliver up to 700 terabits per second of bidirectional bandwidth per chip package.
• The start-up has recently raised $100 million in funding.

The size of AI models that implement machine learning continue to grow staggeringly fast.

Such AI models are used for computer vision, large language models such as ChatGPT, and recommendation systems that rank items such as search results and music playlists.

David Lazovsky

The workhorse silicon used to build such AI models are graphics processing units (GPUs). GPU processing performance and their memory size may be advancing impressively but AI model growth is far outpacing their processing and input-output [I/O] capabilities.

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Broadcom's first Jericho3 takes on AI's networking challenge

Broadcom’s Jericho silicon has taken an exciting turn.

Oozie Parizer

The Jericho devices are used for edge and core routers.

But the first chip of Broadcom’s next-generation Jericho is aimed at artificial intelligence (AI); another indicator, if one is needed, of AI’s predominance.

Dubbed the Jericho3-AI, the device networks AI accelerator chips that run massive machine-learning workloads.

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Taking a unique angle to platform design

• A novel design based on a vertical line card shortens the trace length between an ASIC and pluggable modules.
• Reducing the trace length improves signal integrity while maintaining the merits of using pluggables.
• Using the vertical line card design will extend for at least two more generations the use of pluggables with Ethernet switches.

The travelling salesperson problem involves working out the shortest route on a round-trip to multiple cities. It's a well-known complex optimisation problem.

Chris Cole

Systems engineers face their own complex optimisation problem just sending an electrical signal between two points, connecting an Ethernet switch chip to a pluggable optical module, for example.

Sending the high-speed signal over the link with sufficient fidelity for its recovery requires considerable electronic engineering design skills. And with each generation of electrical signalling, link distances are getting shorter.

In a paper presented at the recent ECOC show, held in Basel, consultant Chris Cole, working with Yamaichi Electronics, outlined a novel design that shortens the distance between an Ethernet switch chip and the front-panel optics.

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ECOC '22 Reflections - Part 2

Gazettabyte is asking industry and academic figures for their thoughts after attending ECOC 2022, held in Basel, Switzerland. In particular, what developments and trends they noted, what they learned, and what, if anything, surprised them. 

maytikka, Shutterstock.com

In Part 2, Broadcom‘s Rajiv Pancholy, optical communications advisor, Chris Cole, LightCouting’s Vladimir Kozlov, Ciena’s Helen Xenos, and Synopsys’ Twan Korthorst share their thoughts.

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Tencent makes its co-packaged optics move

• Tencent is the first hyperscaler to announce it is deploying a co-packaged optics switch chip

• Tencent will use Broadcom’s Humboldt that combines its 25.6-terabit Tomahawk 4 switch chip with four optical engines, each 3.2 terabit-per-second (Tbps)

Part 2: Broadcom's co-packaged optics 

Tencent will use Broadcom’s Tomahawk 4 switch chip co-packaged with optics for its data centres.

Manish Mehta

“We are now partnered with the hyperscaler to deploy this in a network,” says Manish Mehta, vice president of marketing and operations optical systems division, Broadcom. “This is a huge step for co-packaged optics overall.”

The Chinese hyperscaler will use Broadcom’s 25.6Tbps Tomahawk 4 Humboldt, a hybrid design where half of the chip’s input-output (I/O) is optical and half is the chip’s serialisers-deserialisers (serdes) that connect to pluggable modules on the switch’s front panel.

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