News: Optoelectronics
9 March 2022
Ranovus and TE Connectivity demo first monolithic 800G optical interconnect with fine-pitch socket for co-packaged optics and optical module applications
At the Optical Fiber Communications conference (OFC 2022) in San Diego, CA, USA (8-10 March), Ranovus Inc of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (which develops and manufactures multi-terabit photonics interconnect solutions for data-center and communications networks) and TE Connectivity (which designs and makes sensors and connectors) have announced that their strategic collaboration has delivered the world’s first Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) platform based on Ranovus’ Odin 800Gbps Analog-Drive CPO 2.0 architecture with TE’s CPx fine-pitch socket interposer technology. The CPO implementation, the result of a three-year development cooperation between Ranovus and TE, showcases a fully operational co-packaged optical assembly that has been socketed onto a package substrate typical of what is required for a full CPO solution.
Ranovus’ Odin silicon photonics engine is a low-latency, high-density, protocol-agnostic optical engine that delivers massive optical interconnect bandwidth with what is claimed to be industry-leading cost and power efficiency. The Odin engine scales from 800Gbps to 3.2Tbps in the same footprint by leveraging Ranovus’ 100Gbps-per-lambda monolithic electro-photonic integrated circuit (EPIC) cores, laser platform, and advanced packaging technologies. The Odin engine addresses the critical need by hyperscalers for power-efficient, high-throughput and high-density optical interconnect that can flexibly be integrated into next-generation data-center solutions.
“Following on our Odin Analog-Drive CPO 2.0 plaftorm and strategic partnership announcements at OFC 2021, we are pleased to demonstrate the flexibility of our Odin 800Gbps optical interconnect platform in combination with the novel CPx fine-pitch socket interposers, with superior signal integrity, developed by TE,” says John Martinho, senior VP R&D at Ranovus. “We have been at the forefront of the co-packaged optics initative since 2018 and are thrilled to be able to offer our customers the flexibility of co-packaging our Odin IP cores with TE’s fine-pitch sockets for both CPO and optical module applications.”
Co-packaged optics is an approach that provides Nx100Gbps PAM4 optical input/output (I/O) for Ethernet switch and ML/AI silicon in a single packaged assembly to significantly reduce the cost and power consumption of the complete system.
“It is gratifying to see the progress that Ranovus and TE have made in advancing the co-packaging state-of-the-art with this fully functioning co-packaging assembly,” comments TE technologist Nathan Tracy. “Ranovus’ low-power, high-performance ultra-dense Odin silicon photonics engine fully leverages TE’s CPx fine-pitch electrical interconnect socket technology by taking advantage of the density and excellent signal integrity performance,” he adds. “Co-packaging is all about pushing the technology envelope, and both Ranovus and TE have continued to do that in ways that can enable power reductions and density gains with a serviceable integrated assembly that can enable practical implementations.”
TE’s CPx co-package fine-pitch socket interposer technology can enable integration of miniature optical engine form factors in extreme close proximity to a packaged ASIC die. This can provide an excellent signal integrity transition to the ASIC, as required for minimal equalization or in the case of an analog-drive architecture, reducing the need for complex equalization.
Predicted at OFC a year ago, Ranovus and TE co-packaging technologies are now being trialed with the industry’s thought leaders in operating demonstrations. As the industry works to develop solutions that can enable power-saving co-package optics and analog-drive architectures, Ranovus and TE are demonstrating that the future is here now.
