Abstract
Due to the slowdown of Moore’s law, it will become increasingly challenging to efficiently scale the network in current data centers utilizing electrical packet switches as data rates grow. Optical circuit switches (OCS) represent an appealing option to overcome this issue by eliminating the need for expensive and power-hungry transceivers and electrical switches in the core of the network. In particular, optical switches based on tunable lasers and arrayed waveguide grating routers are quite promising due to the use of a passive core, which increases fault tolerance and reduces management overhead. Such an OCS-network can offer high bandwidth, low network latency and an energy-efficient and scalable data center network. To support dynamic data center workloads efficiently, however, it is critical to switch between wavelengths at nanosecond (ns) timescales. Here we demonstrate ultrafast OCS based on a microcomb and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). Using a photonic integrated Si3N4 microcomb, sub-ns (<520 ps) switching along with the 25-Gbps non-return-to-zero (NRZ) and 50-Gbps four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) burst mode data transmission is achieved. Further, we use a photonic integrated circuit comprising an Indium phosphide based SOA array and an arrayed waveguide grating to show sub-ns switching (<900 ps) along with 25-Gbps NRZ burst mode transmission providing a path towards a more scalable and energy-efficient wavelength-switched network for data centers in the post Moore’s Law era.
Highlights
Due to the slowdown of Moore’s law, it will become increasingly challenging to efficiently scale the network in current data centers utilizing electrical packet switches as data rates grow
In this paper we propose and experimentally demonstrate a disaggregated tunable transceiver that uses photonic chip-based soliton microcombs as a multi-wavelength source, which are generated in high-quality (Q) microresonators exhibiting thirdorder nonlinearity (χ3) and anomalous dispersion[19,20]
The soliton microcomb source distributed among 32 racks provides carriers with Popt ~ −4 dBm while consuming ~2.57 W (1.115 W) electrical power per rack by using a state of the art commercial EDFA making it a highly power-efficient and flexible solution for the data center
Summary
Due to the slowdown of Moore’s law, it will become increasingly challenging to efficiently scale the network in current data centers utilizing electrical packet switches as data rates grow. Optical switches based on tunable lasers and arrayed waveguide grating routers are quite promising due to the use of a passive core, which increases fault tolerance and reduces management overhead Such an OCS-network can offer high bandwidth, low network latency and an energy-efficient and scalable data center network. The arrayed waveguide grating routers (AWGRs)[11,12], in conjunction with a tunable laser (TL), is a promising OCS technology as the core of the network is passive This improves fault tolerance and it is beneficial for future scaling because, unlike with today’s electrical switches, the core may not need to be upgraded when data rates increase. A more compact switching system consisting of PIC-based AWG and SOAs is implemented to show sub-ns switching and 25-GBd NRZ burst mode transmission, indicating the potential utilization of such a miniaturized system to mitigate power and scaling issues
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