Abstract
With the rapidly increasing aggregate bandwidth requirements of data centers there is a growing interest in the insertion of optically interconnected networks with high-radix transparent optical switch fabrics. Silicon photonics is a particularly promising and applicable technology due to its small footprint, CMOS compatibility, high bandwidth density, and the potential for nanosecond scale dynamic connectivity. In this paper we analyze the feasibility of building silicon photonic microring based switch fabrics for data center scale optical interconnection networks. We evaluate the scalability of a microring based switch fabric for WDM signals. Critical parameters including crosstalk, insertion loss and switching speed are analyzed, and their sensitivity with respect to device parameters is examined. We show that optimization of physical layer parameters can reduce crosstalk and increase switch fabric scalability. Our analysis indicates that with current state-of-the-art devices, a high radix 128 × 128 silicon photonic single chip switch fabric with tolerable power penalty is feasible. The applicability of silicon photonic microrings for data center switching is further supported via review of microring operations and control demonstrations. The challenges and opportunities for this technology platform are discussed.
Highlights
The continuous growth in cloud-based applications and big data analytics has drastically changed the scale of data center networks
We address the challenges of integrating the silicon photonic switching fabric in a larger system and demonstrate its applicability to optically interconnected data centers
High-port count photonic switch fabrics that can be dynamically configured at nanosecond rates are essential for reducing network latency and increasing high-bandwidth connectivity in generation data centers
Summary
The continuous growth in cloud-based applications and big data analytics has drastically changed the scale of data center networks. A large-scale integrated optical switching substrate with nanosecond switching speed and low energy consumption would address a larger fraction of the intra- data center traffic delivering substantial performance gains. Silicon photonics [5, 6] is an excellent candidate technology for realizing such ultra-highspeed optical switches It provides small area footprint, low power consumption (due to the close proximity of electronic drivers) and the potential for reduced fabrication costs at large scales. A custom CMOS integrated circuit was designed and tightly integrated with a photonic switch fabric [23] in order to control the switch These demonstrations pave the way towards larger switch fabric experiments where optical network interfaces interconnect the photonic substrate and enable the investigation of realistic data center applications.
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