COBO acts to bring optics closer to the chip
Thursday, April 30, 2015 at 9:46AM The formation of the Consortium for On-Board Optics (COBO) highlights how, despite engineers putting high-speed optics into smaller and smaller pluggable modules, further progress in interface compactness is needed.
The goal of COBO, announced at the OFC 2015 show and backed by such companies as Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Finisar and Intel, is to develop a technology roadmap and common specifications for on-board optics to ensure interoperability.
“The Microsoft initiative is looking at the next wave of innovation as it relates to bringing optics closer to the CPU,” says Saeid Aramideh, co-founder and chief marketing and sales officer for start-up Ranovus, one of the founding members of COBO. “There are tremendous benefits for such an architecture in terms of reducing power dissipation and increasing the front panel density.”
