New optical transceivers for high-speed CPU interconnect

New optical transceivers for high-speed CPU interconnect

With a compact new light source based on silicon for optical transceiver to the Fujitsu Laboratories, the development of optical data transmission between CPUs advance. The latter is a prerequisite for the needed in future systems and supercomputers, high-speed data transfer between the internal components such as CPUs, memory chips. But especially in the integration of optical transceivers in CPUs, developers had to deal with thermal fluctuations, which affect the interaction of silicon light sources and the signals responsible for the generation of optical modulators. This is often a discrepancy between the laser wavelength was due to the light source and the operating wavelength in the modulator, which prevented the data transfer. Therefore, such transceiver previously required an additional thermal control, but also increases the energy and space requirements. You should be omitted in the development of Fujitsu Laboratories. These researchers use a mechanism that keeps in sync automatically both wavelengths.

The light source consists of a semiconductor optical amplifier and a silicon mirror, which in turn includes a ring resonator and a Bragg reflector. The modulator also has - multiple - ring resonators, which may be compact and energy-efficient but are also sensitive to heat. In order to respond the ring resonators in the light source and the modulator on the same heat of the CPU, the researchers have brought them to the exact same size. Other control elements are eliminated and thus can reduce the size of the transmitter under 1 mm. Several transmitters are shown side by side an optical transceiver that meets the requirements for future high speed CPU interconnect.