Tu.4.H.3

Photonic Interconnect Technologies for
Data Center and HPC in the EU Project
PhoxTroT
Tolga Tekin and Dimitris Apostolopoulos
National TU of Athens
tolga.tekin@izm.fraunhofer.de© PhoxTroT
Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UK

apostold@mail.ntua.gr

The Cloud

Annual global data center IP traffic will reach 6.6 zettabytes by the endof 2016. By 2016, global data center IP traffic will reach 554 exabytes
per month (up from 146 exabytes per month in 2011)
By 2016, nearly two-thirds of all workloads will be processed in thecloud2© PhoxTroT

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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UKTraffic Statistics
Internet is forecast to reachthe zettabyte era in 2016, but thedata center has already entered
the zettabyte era
Expected to reach 6.6
zettabytes in 2016

Traffic change 2011-2016
o DC to DC: 32%
o DC to user: 31%
o Within DC: 30%

Source: Cisco Global Cloud Index3© PhoxTroT

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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UK

Challenges
Data center size
From DC to DF

DC became huge
Increased cabling
Space and cost

Larger number of intradatacenterinterconnections
BandwidthPower, cabling andbandwidth
power consumption

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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UKOptical Interconnection
Electrical Buses become increasingly difficult at high data rates.
Increasing losses & cross-talkFrequency resonant affects

Optical data transmission is easier.
Much lower loss, esp. at higher data rates
Cable bulk, connector size, EMI…

BW * Distance > electricalPower efficiency compared to copper solutions
Significant progress has been done already but
Per technology platform research
Focus is on pieces of the complete puzzle
In most cases applications is not the driving force
5© PhoxTroT

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Enter PhoxTroT
PhoxTroT is a large-scale European
research effort focusing on
high-performance,
low-energy,low-cost,small-size
Optical interconnects across the whole
data center ecosystem:
on-board,board-to-board andrack-to-rack.
6© PhoxTroT

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Objectives
Generic building block that can be used for a broad range ofapplications, extending performance beyond Tb/s and reducing
energy by more than 50%.
A unified integration/packaging methodology as a cost/energyreduction factor for board-adaptable 3D SiP transceiver and routeroptochip fabrication.
The whole "food-chain" of low-cost and low-energy interconnect
technologies concluding to 3 fully functional prototype systems:an >1Tb/s throughput optical PCB and >50% reduced energy
requirementsa high-end >2Tb/s throughput optical backplane for board-to-board
interconnection anda 1.28Tb/s Active Optical Cable that reduces power requirements by>70%.

7© PhoxTroT

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Holistic Approach
PhoxTroT tackles optical interconnects in a holistic way, synergizing
the different technology platforms in order to deploy the optimal"mix&match" technology and tailor this to each interconnect layer.
PCBs
Interfaces

PICs

Transceivers
Switches& Routers

Polymers

Glass

Glass

Plasmonics

Si Photonics

IIIIII-V

CMOSelectronics

Si Photonics

CMOSelectronics

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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UKEcosystem

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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UK

OnOn-Board, Multi
Multiulti-Mode Optical
Optical Interconnection Technologies

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MultiMulti-Mode Demonstration Scenario
DATA CENTRE SUBSYSTEM ADAPTATIONSBB form factor allowing deployment in data storage enclosure
Data storage system front end
SAS controller hardware
FPGA for protocol conversion
Optical waveguide interconnection
Electrical and optical backplane compatibility

11© PhoxTroT

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MultiMulti-Mode Polymer Waveguide PCB
PhoxTroT on-board platform designs
Dual layer polymer based PCB with embedded optical waveguideC2B interfaces
Two optoelectronic routers optically interconnected c
PHOXTROT51_1

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PHOXTROT51_2

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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UK

PHOXTROT51_3

SingleSingle-Mode Optical Interconnection Technologies

On‐chip SOI‐based 4x4 non‐blocking switching matrices
Single‐mode polymer and glass embedded waveguides for high‐end
optical PCBs
Passive board‐level functional circuitry
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OptoOpto-Chips

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Interfaces

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SingleSingle-Mode Demonstration Scenario

Control signals for e/o switches

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BoardBoard-toto-Board Optical Interconnection Technologies

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BoardBoard-toto-Board Demonstration Scenario
ElectroElectro-optical backplane – data storage demo

Form factor

Multimode waveguide interconnect (doublelayer)

2U or 4U data storage array
midplanePower and low speed electronic control signals

High speed parallel optical links
carrying FGA-generated traffic
between daughtercards

Provision for 2 daughtercards
Multi-mode polymer
waveguide interconnect

18© PhoxTroT

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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UKRackRack-toto-Rack Interconnection Technologies

Active Optical Cable
Exploit advance modulation formats for rack-to-rack interconnection
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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UK

Multimode Polymer Waveguide Development: Process Scaling
to large FF’s
Multimode polymer waveguide process compatible with panel-scale HLC
PCBs have been developed and demonstrated (TTM technologies)
Multimode waveguides on optical PCBs

Multi-mode waveguides on
optical line card (chip-to-chip)and optical backplane (board-toboard)
20© PhoxTroT

Single-layer polymer WG process
supporting 300x350mm form factor
on rigid MLB PCBs established
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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UK

SM Optoboard
Formation of cavities on Optoboard for direct placement of Optochip on
Glass/Optoboard
Simultaneous creation of an „adhesion promoter layer“ between Arlon
and Glass, which also optically offers a cladding with n<1.5077 for SM
WG propagation

ArlonLayer (25µm)

n: 1.5751.575-1585

n: 1.451.45-1.48

Glass plate:plate: 300µm
Layer (25µm)
Arlon
Fraunhofer IZM

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Optoelectronic Routing circuit
Traffic manager chip developed by Compass EOS

Aggregate bidi bandwidth 1.34Tb/s with a data density of 64Gb/s/mm2
12x14 VCSELs and PDs
Each link operates at 8Gb/s
10.2pJ/bit for each link including all electronics
BER< 10-12 to 300m with OM3 multimode fiber

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Multimode Coupling Interface
Development of cavity hole design enabling optical mid-board access I/O(TTM Technologies)
Coupling interface in/out TX/RX

Optical coupling chip-to-WG(VCSEL/WG, WG/PD) usingreflector surface built-in WG
lensed mirror chip component
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PhoxTroT Roadmap

PhoxTroT Roadmap

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PhoxTroT - ConsortiumPhoxTroT brings together the major European industrial andresearch players in the field.
Fraunhofer IZM (DE)Compass EOS Ltd (IL)

Fraunhofer HHI (DE)

Bright Photonics BV (NL)

Vertilas GmbH (DE)CTI (EL)

Xyratex Technology Ltd (UK)ams AG (AT)CNRS-LPN (FR)TTM Technologies (HK)KIT (DE)AMO GmbH (DE)SDU (DK)

ICCS/NTUA (EL)

UPVLC (ES)DAS Photonics SL (ES)IMEC (BE)

Phoenix BV (NL)TE Connectivity (NL)CERTH (EL)25
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CNRS-UB (FR)

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Program : ICT - Information and Communication Technologies
Project Coordinator:
Coordinator:

Dr. Tolga Tekin Photonic & Plasmonic Systems, Fraunhofer for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM)
Tel: +49 30 464 03 639
E-Mail: project.phoxtrot@izm.fraunhofer.de26© PhoxTroT

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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UK

WORKSHOP
Wednesday 25th September 2013, 12:00 – 17:30
Meeting Room: SG21 & SG22
Supported byTechnology Workshop“Optical Interconnect in Data Centers
18-19 March 2014 Berlin, Germany
Organized by EPIC & PhoxTroT
Held in conjunction with Laser Optics, www.laser-optics-berlin.de

1st European Summer Schoolon “Optical Interconnects”
3-6 June 2014, Thessaloniki, Greece
Co-organized by FP7 PhoxTrot and ECO cluster

27© PhoxTroT

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Tu.4.H.3 ECOC 2013, September 24, 2013, London, UK