Intel Labs Announces Integrated Photonics Research Advancement
28 June 2022 - 11:00PM
Business Wire
Intel demonstrates a tightly controlled
eight-wavelength laser array on a silicon wafer with matched power
and uniform spacing.
What’s New: Intel Labs announces a significant
advancement in its integrated photonics research – the next
frontier in increasing communication bandwidth between compute
silicon in data centers and across networks. The latest research
features industry-leading advancements in multiwavelength
integrated optics, including the demonstration of an
eight-wavelength distributed feedback (DFB) laser array that is
fully integrated on a silicon wafer and delivers excellent output
power uniformity of +/- 0.25 decibel (dB) and wavelength spacing
uniformity of ±6.5% that exceed industry specifications.
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Illustration shows eight micro-ring
modulators and optical waveguide. Each micro-ring modulator is
tuned to a specific wavelength -- or “color” of light. By using
multiple wavelengths, each micro-ring can individually modulate the
light to enable independent communication. This method of using
multiple wavelengths is called wavelength-division multiplexing.
(Credit: Intel Corporation)
“This new research demonstrates that
it’s possible to achieve well-matched output power with uniform and
densely spaced wavelengths. Most importantly, this can be done
using existing manufacturing and process controls in Intel’s fabs,
thereby ensuring a clear path to volume production of the
next-generation co-packaged optics and optical compute interconnect
at scale.” –Haisheng Rong, senior principal engineer at Intel
Labs
What It Means: This advancement will enable the
production of the optical source with the required performance for
future high-volume applications, such as co-packaged optics and
optical compute interconnect for emerging network-intensive
workloads including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine
learning (ML). The laser array is built on Intel’s 300-millimeter
silicon photonics manufacturing process to pave the way for
high-volume manufacturing and broad deployment.
By 2025, Gartner forecasts that silicon photonics will be used
in more than 20% of all high-bandwidth data center communications
channels, up from less than 5% in 2020, and will represent a total
available market of $2.6 billion. The growing demand for low power
consumption, high bandwidth and faster data transfer is driving the
need for silicon photonics to support data center applications and
beyond.
Why It Matters: Optical connections began replacing
copper wires in the 1980s due to the inherent high bandwidth of
light transmission in optical fibers instead of electrical impulses
transmitted through metal wires. Since then, the technology has
become more efficient due to reduced component size and cost,
leading to breakthroughs in the past few years in using optical
interconnects for network solutions, typically in switches, data
centers and other high-performance computing environments.
With the rise of electrical interconnect performance
limitations, integrating silicon circuitry and optics side by side
on the same package holds the promise of a future input/output
(I/O) interface with improved energy efficiency and longer reach.
These photonic technologies were achieved in Intel’s fab using
existing process technologies, which translates to favorable cost
reductions of large-scale manufacturing.
Recent co-packaged optics solutions using dense wavelength
division multiplexing (DWDM) technology have shown the promise of
increasing bandwidth while significantly reducing the physical size
of photonic chips. However, it has been very difficult to produce
DWDM light sources with uniform wavelength spacing and power until
now.
This new advancement ensures consistent wavelength separation of
light sources while maintaining uniform output power, resulting in
meeting one of the requirements for optical compute interconnect
and DWDM communication. The next generation of compute I/O using
optical interconnect can be tailor-made for the extreme demands of
tomorrow’s high-bandwidth AI and ML workloads.
How It Works: The eight-wavelength DFB array was designed
and fabricated using Intel’s commercial 300 mm hybrid silicon
photonics platform, which is used to manufacture production optical
transceivers in volume. This innovation marks a significant
advancement in the capabilities of laser manufacturing in a
high-volume complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fab by
utilizing the same lithography technology used to manufacture 300
mm silicon wafers with tight process control.
For this research, Intel used advanced lithography to define the
waveguide gratings in silicon prior to the III-V wafer bonding
process. This technique resulted in better wavelength uniformity
compared to conventional semiconductor lasers manufactured in
3-inch or 4-inch III-V wafer fabs. In addition, due to the tight
integration of the lasers, the array also maintains its channel
spacing when the ambient temperature is changed.
What’s Next: As a pioneer of silicon photonics
technology, Intel is committed to developing solutions to meet the
growing demand for a more efficient and resourceful network
infrastructure. Core technology building blocks under development
include light generation, amplification, detection, modulation,
CMOS interface circuits and package integration technologies.
In addition, many aspects of the eight-wavelength integrated
laser array technology are being implemented by Intel’s Silicon
Photonics Products Division as part of a future optical compute
interconnect chiplet product. The forthcoming product will offer
power-efficient, high-performance multi-terabits per second
interconnect between compute resources including CPUs, GPUs and
memory. The integrated laser array is a critical element to achieve
a compact and cost-effective solution that supports high-volume
manufacturing and deployment.
More Context: Integrated Photonics
About Intel
Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is an industry leader, creating
world-changing technology that enables global progress and enriches
lives. Inspired by Moore’s Law, we continuously work to advance the
design and manufacturing of semiconductors to help address our
customers’ greatest challenges. By embedding intelligence in the
cloud, network, edge and every kind of computing device, we unleash
the potential of data to transform business and society for the
better. To learn more about Intel’s innovations, go to
newsroom.intel.com and intel.com.
© Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo and other Intel marks
are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other
names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
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Laura Stadler 1-619- 346-1170 laura.stadler@intel.com
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