Reference number : GC-2017-Q3-00399, amendment number : , agreement type : G, recipient legal name : Liboiron-Ladouceur, Odile (McGill University)|Liboiron-Ladouceur, Odile (Université McGill), recipient country : CA, recipient province : nan, recipient city : Quebec|Québec, recipient postal code : nan, program name english : Collaborative Research and Development Grants - Project, program name french : Subventions de recherche et développement coopérative - projet, program purpose english : This three-year project investigates scalable interconnection network architecture for data centers. A torus network topology can scale to meet the demand for larger data interconnectivity between servers requiring low latency and large aggregated bandwidth. While servers are interconnected optically with point-to-point optical links, the interconnectivity is currently reconfigured using an electrical switch ensuring connectivity between all servers. The signal conversion between the optical domain of the transmission and the electrical domain for the switching is limiting the scalability of the network. Through recent development in photonic integration, practical optical switch matrices proved to be a potentially disruptive solution. The challenges remain in the scalability of photonic circuits in silicon technology platform due to their inherent propagation and fiber coupling losses. The project is in collaboration with an Ottawa-based startup, Rockport Networks, investigating the prospect of photonic integrated switches for data centers interconnectivity exploiting Rockport's innovative control plane. Important research advancements beyond the switch co-design with the controller are solution development for compensating the losses using optical gain elements. Prof. Liboiron-Ladouceur and her students will leverage significant contributions made in the last five years in the area of photonic integrated circuits and switches to investigate system integration feasibility and scalability of integrated optical switch matrices. The benefits of this industrial collaboration will allow Rockport to verify their architectural approach and support their control plane software development effort. At a larger scale, more scalable hardware infrastructure supporting the Internet will allow for more secure communication with greater ability to support the exponential increase in data and its invaluable possibilities., program purpose french : This three-year project investigates scalable interconnection network architecture for data centers. A torus network topology can scale to meet the demand for larger data interconnectivity between servers requiring low latency and large aggregated bandwidth. While servers are interconnected optically with point-to-point optical links, the interconnectivity is currently reconfigured using an electrical switch ensuring connectivity between all servers. The signal conversion between the optical domain of the transmission and the electrical domain for the switching is limiting the scalability of the network. Through recent development in photonic integration, practical optical switch matrices proved to be a potentially disruptive solution. The challenges remain in the scalability of photonic circuits in silicon technology platform due to their inherent propagation and fiber coupling losses. The project is in collaboration with an Ottawa-based startup, Rockport Networks, investigating the prospect of photonic integrated switches for data centers interconnectivity exploiting Rockport's innovative control plane. Important research advancements beyond the switch co-design with the controller are solution development for compensating the losses using optical gain elements. Prof. Liboiron-Ladouceur and her students will leverage significant contributions made in the last five years in the area of photonic integrated circuits and switches to investigate system integration feasibility and scalability of integrated optical switch matrices. The benefits of this industrial collaboration will allow Rockport to verify their architectural approach and support their control plane software development effort. At a larger scale, more scalable hardware infrastructure supporting the Internet will allow for more secure communication with greater ability to support the exponential increase in data and its invaluable possibilities., agreement title english : Zero loss photonic integrated switches for scalable torus mesh network topologies, agreement title french : Zero loss photonic integrated switches for scalable torus mesh network topologies, agreement number : CRDPJ, agreement value : 310201.0, agreement start date : 2017-10-18, agreement end date : nan, description english : nan, description french : nan, expected results english : nan, expected results french : nan, additional information english : Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2020-2021)., additional information french : Subvention ou bourse octroyée s'appliquant à plus d'un exercice financier (2017-2018 à 2020-2021)., owner organization : nserc-crsng, owner organization title : Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada | Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada