Optical Interconnects: Paving the Way for Efficient Data Transmission in the Digital Age

In the digital age, data centers have become the lifeblood of our connected world. These colossal hubs store, process, and transmit vast amounts of data, ensuring that your favorite app, website, or streaming service is just a click away. However, with the growing demand for data and the rise of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and the Internet of Things, data centers need to evolve. Optical interconnects are at the forefront of this transformation, enabling low-cost, power-efficient, and high-bandwidth transmission. In this article, we will explore how optical interconnects are shaping the future of data centers and intelligent networks.

The Demand for Transformation

The exponential growth of data has pushed traditional electronic interconnects, typically copper-based, to their limits. Copper cables, while reliable, have limitations in terms of bandwidth and energy efficiency. As data centers strive to handle the ever-increasing volumes of information, the need for faster, more energy-efficient interconnects has become paramount.

This is where optical interconnects come into play. Using light to transmit data, these interconnects are proving to be a game-changer for data centers and the networks of the future. Here’s how they’re making a difference:

The Rise of Optical Interconnects

Optical interconnects are changing the game when it comes to data transmission within data centers and beyond. These systems utilize light to transmit signals and are now widely adopted in various applications such as telecommunications, data communication, and industries like military, aerospace, and automotive.

One major motivation for this transition comes from an important trend in the microelectronics industry which aims to increase the parallelism in computation by multithreading, by building large-scale multichip systems, and, more recently, by increasing the number of cores on a single chip. As users continue to demand greater computing performance, chip designers plan to increase this number to tens or even hundreds of cores. This multicore approach, however, only makes sense if each core can receive and transmit large messages from all other cores on the chip simultaneously. The individual cores located on today’s multicore microprocessors communicate with one another over millions of tiny copper wires.

The Challenge with Copper Wiring

Millions of tiny copper wires have traditionally been the highways for communication between the cores in multicore processors. However, as the number of cores continues to increase, copper wiring becomes impractical. In electrical interconnects, nonlinear signals (e.g., digital signals) are transmitted by copper wires conventionally, and these electrical wires all have resistance and capacitance which severely limits the rise time of signals when the dimensions of the wires are scaled down. These wires consume excessive power and are incapable of handling the enormous amount of data required for seamless communication between cores.

The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) recognized the problem of interconnect scaling, indicating a critical bottleneck for the semiconductor industry. This bottleneck has accelerated the search for alternatives to traditional copper interconnects.

Optical Interconnects: A Beacon of Hope

Optical interconnects offer a promising solution to these challenges. They leverage the power of light to transmit data, enabling data centers to operate at higher speeds, with lower latency, and reduced power consumption. The use of photons, rather than electrons, means that they can transmit data at much higher speeds than traditional copper interconnects. These interconnects can support data rates in the terabits per second range, enabling data centers to keep up with the rapidly growing data demand.

High-speed optical interconnects ensure that data can flow seamlessly within data centers and between them, facilitating the timely delivery of services. Optical interconnects emerged as a promising alternative that offers high throughput, low latency, and reduced power consumption. Just as telecommunications carriers replaced copper wires with optical fiber to exploit the fiber’s speed and capacity advantage over copper, researchers anticipate that Si nanophotonics, especially chip-scale optical components based on photonic crystal technology, will potentially enable production-capable data transmission at faster speeds than metallic interconnects on a chip-sized scale.

Integrated optical interconnects are anticipated to provide solutions for the ever-growing demand for low-cost, power-efficient, high-bandwidth interconnects. Initially, these needs are most acute in data centers for communication between servers, but optical interconnects are poised to also provide solutions for even shorter-reach communication links such as chip-to-chip as well as processor-to-memory. While data communications applications are driving significant investment, there is a wide range of other applications of integrated photonics that take advantage of this investment to enable many future technologies, particularly in sensing.

Enhanced Energy Efficiency

One of the most significant advantages of optical interconnects is their energy efficiency. Copper-based interconnects are notorious for consuming large amounts of power. Optical interconnects, on the other hand, are inherently energy-efficient. This is crucial for data centers, as reduced power consumption translates to lower operational costs and a smaller environmental footprint. With the increasing focus on sustainability, optical interconnects align well with the goal of creating greener data centers.

Scalability and Flexibility

Data centers are no longer static entities; they need to adapt to ever-changing workloads and demands. Optical interconnects provide the scalability and flexibility that modern data centers require. As the need for more bandwidth grows, data centers can easily expand their optical networks by adding more optical transceivers and cables. This scalability ensures that data centers remain versatile and capable of handling any future growth in data traffic.

 Applications of Optical Interconnects

The applications of optical interconnects span a wide range of fields. They are essential in data communication networks, particularly in data centers that have witnessed an exponential increase in network traffic due to cloud computing, 5G, and IoT applications. Optical interconnects enable the transfer of vast amounts of data between data centers and other end-user industries.

These interconnects also play a pivotal role in the development of intelligent networks. In healthcare, optical interconnects enable real-time data transmission for remote surgeries and patient monitoring. Smart cities rely on optical interconnects for efficient data exchange between components to enhance overall performance and security. Furthermore, autonomous vehicles depend on optical interconnects for rapid communication between sensors and control systems, ensuring safety and reliability.

Enabling the Intelligent Network

Beyond data centers, optical interconnects are instrumental in shaping intelligent networks. The intelligent network era involves interconnected systems, from smart cities to autonomous vehicles and healthcare applications. Optical interconnects provide the high-speed, low-latency connectivity required for these systems to function effectively.

In healthcare, for instance, optical interconnects support real-time data transmission for remote surgeries and patient monitoring. In smart cities, these interconnects facilitate rapid information exchange between various components, enhancing overall efficiency and security. Autonomous vehicles rely on optical interconnects for ultra-fast communication between sensors and control systems, ensuring safe and reliable operation.

The Future of Optical Interconnects

Fiber-optic solutions are the backbone of modern optical interconnects, enabling data transmission across short and long distances. These optical marvels are widely used in data centers and telecommunication networks, with fiber-optic cables physically connected to transceivers equipped with lasers and detectors.  The choice of transceiver depends on the specific requirements of data transport, including speed and distance.

Fiber-optic solutions are instrumental in intra- and inter-datacenter interconnects, “last mile” premises connectivity, metropolitan optical networks, and submarine communication cables. Their capacity for high-speed, long-distance data transfer ensures their continued relevance in the digital age, powering everything from video streaming to technological innovations.

For short-range applications and scenarios where optical fibers aren’t feasible, free-space optical interconnects offer a practical solution. These systems transmit light signals through the atmosphere, space, or vacuum over shorter distances.

It is a straight point-to-point link as free-space transmission cannot be bent in a direction like a fiber optical cable and it is generally collimated with lenses or mirrors. In terrestrial applications, it has a maximum range of up to around two miles. Limiting factors are the weather conditions that cause scattering and damping of the signal, environmental light, and atmospheric distortions. While this approach is somewhat limited, it finds use in unique scenarios, such as ground-satellite links and satellite-to-satellite communications.

Optical Interconnect technology

Optical communication’s importance has grown with increased data generation and transmission, particularly between AI servers, which rely on parallel processing and data exchange between chips. To reduce signal latency and enhance data transmission speeds, co-package optics (CPO) with silicon photonics substrates are becoming crucial, especially in close proximity to various IC processors.

Today, optical interconnect technology is widely adopted for signal connections between server racks and even between layers within a rack (unit-to-unit).

However, the challenge lies in signal connections between boards, where electrical connections are still prevalent. The combination of CPO and silicon photonics provides an optimal solution for addressing this challenge and boosting data transmission speeds in the AI era. Meanwhile, signal connections between chips have been addressed by TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies like 3DIC, CoWoS (chip-on-wafer-on-substrate), chiplet integration, and fabric. These technologies utilize electrical signal exchanges to meet the interconnect needs between chips.

While the traditional ecosystem featuring pluggable optical modules still has a presence, the linear-drive pluggable optics (LPO) concept has emerged, removing re-timer/DSP functions from pluggable optical modules and shifting signal processing to ASICs. LPO reduces signal latency and power consumption within the modules, potentially delaying the generational shift in Si photonics CPO and offering an improved approach to address the demands of high-performance data transmission.

Key technologies driving optical interconnects include photonic active and passive components, photonic integration, assembly technologies, and related systems. Among these, polymer optical waveguide technology stands out, facilitating the integration of high volumes of optical interconnects into racks and motherboards in a cost-effective manner. However, demanding high-performance computing applications require these waveguides to meet stringent criteria like low optical loss, long-term reliability, and cost-effectiveness. Two mature material systems, polynorbornene and silicone, are emerging as the frontrunners to meet these demands. This advancement in polymer waveguide systems presents a practical solution to enhance optical interconnects’ efficiency and meet the growing demands of data centers and high-speed networks by replacing traditional wires with light-based connections.

In the realm of optical interconnect technology, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) is the dominant approach, ensuring efficient data transfer. Essential components, such as optical filters, play a crucial role in multiplexing and de-multiplexing wavelength signals within optical networks. Iridian offers a wide range of high-quality telecom filters for applications like coarse WDM (CWDM), dense WDM (DWDM), FTTx (fiber to the x), and free-space optical interconnects. These components facilitate the efficient management and optimization of data transfer in advanced optical systems, reflecting the ever-growing demand for higher bandwidth and low latency.

Moreover, innovative polymer materials, like FS-BOC, are opening doors to more accessible fabrication of optical interconnects. This material system enables direct printing of optical interconnections into a dry film material using UV light, compatible with CMOS manufacturing techniques. This advancement is making optical interconnects more practical, contributing to greater data throughput and reduced power consumption while minimizing heat generation. With the potential to revolutionize data centers and internet infrastructure, these light-based interconnects pave the way for more efficient, high-speed, and environmentally friendly data transmission. Researchers are actively exploring improvements in material properties, refractive index contrast, and high-temperature performance to further enhance the capabilities of optical interconnects and their resilience in the face of evolving technological demands.

 Market Outlook

The Optical Interconnect Market size is estimated at USD 15.15 billion in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 28.10 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 13.15% during the forecast period (2023-2028).

Optical Interconnect Market Trends

Moreover, the optical interconnect market is on the rise, with data communications being a major driving force. Data centers’ need for bandwidth, lower power consumption, and reduced latency is propelling the adoption of optical interconnects. The market is expected to continue growing, driven by factors like the increasing deployment of data centers and the demand for energy-efficient solutions.

One of the major applications of optical interconnectivity is within data communication networks which include datacenter networks, wireless access networks, and wired access networks. Current data center networks, which are based on electronic packet switches, experience an exponential increase in network traffic due to cloud computing development. Optical interconnects emerged as a promising alternative that offers high throughput, low latency, and reduced power
consumption. According to IEEE Communications, all-optical networks could provide up to 75% energy savings in the data centers. Especially in large data centers used in enterprises, the use of power-efficient, high bandwidth, and low latency interconnects is of paramount importance, and there is significant interest in the deployment of optical interconnects in these data centers.

Key players are II-VI Incorporated, InnoLight Technology (Suzhou) Ltd., NVIDIA CorporationLumentum Operations LLC, Molex LLC,  TE Connectivity, Amphenol Corporation, Broadcom Inc., Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., Juniper Networks, Inc., Fujitsu Ltd.

Conclusion

In the digital age, where data is king, optical interconnects are becoming the knights in shining armor for data centers and intelligent networks. They offer high-speed, energy-efficient, and cost-effective solutions to meet the ever-increasing demands for data transmission. The transition from copper-based connections to optical interconnects represents a monumental step towards creating more efficient, sustainable, and intelligent data ecosystems. As we embark on this journey, we can expect data centers and intelligent networks to evolve and thrive, empowering the technologies of tomorrow.