A major breakthrough!The first domestic 1.6Tb/s silicon optical interconnect chip was successfully developed

On December 27, news from the National Information Optoelectronics Innovation Center showed that the State Key Laboratory of Optical Fiber Communication Technology and Network of China Information and Communication Technology Group United States Information Optoelectronics Innovation Center (NOEIC) and Pengcheng Laboratory have taken the lead in China to complete 1 ．Joint development and functional verification of 6Tb/s silicon-based optical transceiver chip!

We must know that with the rapid development of emerging technologies such as supercomputing, artificial intelligence, and 5G, and the explosive growth of global data exchange demand, the market for optical transceiver modules has reached hundreds of billions. At present, 400G optical modules have entered the stage of commercial deployment internationally, and 800G optical module prototype development and technical standards are in progress. On December 13, the MSA (Multi-Source Agreement) industry alliance for the 1.6T optical interface was announced, declaring that the 1.6Tb/s optical module will become the next hot spot for global competition. However, the 1.6Tb/s optical chip has extremely high challenges in terms of speed, integration, and packaging technology, and there is no clear and complete solution in the world.

(The Ethernet Alliance predicts that the data rate will reach 1.6TE after 2023)

The first domestic 1.6Tb/s silicon optical interconnect chip was developed at NOEIC, which not only realized the first leap of my country’s silicon optical chip technology to Tb/s level, but also provided broadband interconnection in my country’s next-generation data center. A reliable optical chip solution.

According to reports, the researchers have integrated 8 channels of high-speed electro-optic modulators and high-speed photodetectors on a single silicon-based optical transmitter chip and a silicon-based optical receiver chip. Each channel can achieve 200Gb/s PAM4 high-speed signal photoelectricity and Electro-optical conversion, and finally through the chip packaging and system transmission test, completed the single-chip capacity up to 8×200Gb/s optical interconnection technology verification. This work refreshed the previous best level of monolithic optical interconnection rate and interconnection density in China, and demonstrated the outstanding advantages of silicon optical technology such as ultra-high speed, ultra-high density, and high scalability. It is the broadband in the next-generation data center. Interconnect provides a reliable optical chip solution.

5G speeds up, and market demand for optical modules doubles

OFweek Veken noted that with the in-depth implementation of the 5G concept and more and more scene layouts, the number of base stations is gradually increasing. From the perspective of base station construction, the demand for optical modules will be released with the progress of the 5G networking process, especially after downstream applications have a huge demand for the network environment, the market’s voice for optical modules and silicon optical chips will also It’s getting higher and higher.

As we all know, in the modern communication industry, optical communication technology is the mainstream choice for building communication networks, and “fast” is the biggest feature of optical communication technology. Because in optical communication, the signal is transmitted in the form of light in the network, but the terminal that uses the signal uses electricity as the medium of information transmission. Therefore, the optical module has become a key component for realizing the conversion of two kinds of signals and opening up the entire network.

Of course, in essence, the technical principle of the optical module is photoelectric signal conversion, through the two-port connection module of the transmitting end and the receiving end, where the transmitting end converts the electrical signal into an optical signal, and after transmitting it through the optical fiber, the receiving end The optical signal is converted into an electrical signal.

In the overall architecture of the optical module, it is mainly composed of optoelectronic devices, functional circuits and optical interfaces. Among them, optoelectronic devices include light emitting devices (TOSA) and light receiving devices (ROSA), and the core structures are lasers and detectors, respectively. Input a certain code rate electrical signal at the transmitting end of the optical module, and after processing by the drive chip in TOSA, drive the laser to emit a modulated optical signal of a certain frequency, which is transmitted through the optical fiber to the receiving end of another optical module and converted by the detector After being an electrical signal, it outputs an electrical signal with a corresponding code rate after passing through a transimpedance amplifier and a limiting amplifier.

As an indispensable link in the optical communication industry, the demand for optical modules is steadily increasing. Judging from the current market conditions, especially in the data center market, even 100G modules are in short supply, while 10G and 40G modules are still in stock demand, and the previous backlog of orders is still coming out. With the popularization of 5G applications, the upward demand has driven 400G optical modules into commercial use, and has made 800G and 1.6Tb-class networks the focus of technological innovation breakthroughs in the industry. Especially companies engaged in silicon photonics research at the moment are quite favored by the capital market.

Giants look around, who are the players for silicon photonics chips

It is understood that since the silicon optical chip technology was proposed by Bell Labs in 1969, it has been receiving extensive attention from manufacturers. Companies such as IBM, Intel, Sun Microsystems (later merged with Oracle), NTT/NEC and other companies have established independent silicon photonics departments and invested a lot of resources to conduct in-depth research on the silicon photonics industry together with academia, and the silicon photonics industry is on the verge of development.

Among foreign players, take IBM as an example. In 2015, IBM demonstrated a fully integrated sub-wavelength multi-task CMOS silicon photonic chip. The four laser channels of the chip operate on the chip at a speed of 25Gbps. The germanium optical detector and optical demultiplexer are used to fuse them into a single 100Gbps Electronic signal, which can be processed when needed; The interferometer modulates the four lasers outside the chip to become light pulses traveling outside the edge of the chip.

Another pioneer of silicon optical chips is Intel. In the late 1990s, Intel opened a planar optical circuit company, but quietly closed the business in 2004. Until Intel announced that their Light Peak technology (later evolved into Apple’s Thunderbolt) can make high-speed optical links down to par. In 2015, Intel launched a new silicon photonics product. This solution using a built-in hybrid integrated laser + silicon modulator can provide a great speed in the data transmission process of the data center. It is understood that this product is not only low in price, but also easier to produce. This technology is expected to improve the bottleneck problem of data exchange in the data center.

There is also a silicon photonics chip player who is earlier than Intel abroad, and it has now been acquired by Cisco. Founded in 2001, lextura is the world’s first company to provide photonic device solutions. Luxtera’s CMOS photonic devices are integrated by CMOS electronics technology, and the volume is smaller than traditional photonic devices. The technology jointly developed by them and TSMC can provide twice the performance and four times the transmission capacity compared to other silicon optical solutions, support the full integration of optical interconnection capabilities and CMOS electrical chips, and can further reduce power consumption and cost. Prior to this, Luxtera and Intel have been using aggressive pricing strategies to open up the gap in the optical module market.

There are also many important players entering the domestic silicon photonics chip, one of which is Huawei. Huawei itself is a leader in the domestic communications industry. As early as 2013, it joined the battlefield through the acquisition of Belgian silicon optical chip company Caliopa, and later acquired the British photonics integration company CIP.

In addition to Huawei, Fiberhome Technology has also established a subsidiary, Accelink Technology, to develop optical communication chips, with a chip self-sufficiency rate of 95%. But focus on the low-end level. In addition, Freesling, invested by Fiberhome, also focuses on the R&D and design of chips required for optical communication system equipment and optical module devices.

In addition to communication manufacturers, it also includes laser giant Huagong Technology, home appliance giant Hisense, as well as rising stars Source Photonics, Gigalight, Haite High-tech and so on. In general, in the global distribution of silicon optical chips, high-end chips are mainly held in the hands of companies such as the United States and Japan. The self-sufficiency rate of domestic high-end silicon optical chips is still insufficient and is heavily dependent on imports.