Ayar Labs announced the first public demonstration of its optical I/O technology at the OFC Conference and Exhibition in San Diego.
The new solution uses small, compact, co-packaged CMOS chips to deliver 4Tb/s bi-directional wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) for networking and connectivity in data-intensive applications. Optical I/O technology, delivered in a compact, co-packaged CMOS small chip, can be the foundation for data center support applications including: AI/HPC data centers, disaggregated data centers, dense 6G telecom systems and phased array sensing systems, the company said.
Optical I/O solutions in a package have the potential to transform the way semiconductor, AI, HPC and aerospace customers handle their next-generation data-intensive workloads," said Craig Thompson, vice president of network business development at Nvidia.
At OFC, Ayar Labs will demonstrate its optical I/O solution that moves data from one TeraPHY optical I/O small chip to another at 2.048Tb/s per direction - powered by the company's SuperNova optical source. SuperNova powers eight fiber links (using 64 high-precision wavelengths running at 32Gb/s, eight wavelengths and 256Gb/s per fiber) operating error-free with less than 10ns of latency and without forward error correction (FEC). This allows a bandwidth of 2.048Tb/s in each direction or 4.096Tb/s in both directions. Importantly, data transmission uses less than 5 pJ/bit (10W). This level of power efficiency provides the power density and performance per watt needed to implement AI models with trillions of parameters or to support advanced HPC system development.
Ayar Labs has worked with high-volume manufacturing and supply partners including GlobalFoundries, Lumentum, Macom, and Sivers Photonics to achieve this latest milestone.
Ayar Labs continues to demonstrate our technology leadership with this live silicon demonstration, which is overcoming the looming power and performance barriers to electrical design and unleashing the next generation of computers," said Charlie Wuischpard, CEO of Ayar Labs. As we bring together all the supply, manufacturing, test and computing components needed for high-volume deployments, we also show today that we continue to lead the way in pure technical achievement."
