Archive for September, 2024
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September 25, 2024
Marvell COLORZ 800 Named Most Innovative Product at ECOC 2024
By Michael Kanellos, Head of Influencer Relations, MarvellWith AI computing and cloud data centers requiring unprecedented levels of performance and power, Marvell is leading the way with transformative optical interconnect solutions for accelerated infrastructure to meet the rising demand for network bandwidth.
At the ECOC 2024 Exhibition Industry Awards event, Marvell received the Most Innovative Pluggable Transceiver/Co-Packaged Module Award for the Marvell® COLORZ® 800 family. Launched in 2020 for ECOC’s 25th anniversary, the ECOC Exhibition Industry Awards spotlight innovation in optical communications, transport, and photonic technologies. This recognition highlights the company’s innovations in ZR/ZR+ technology for accelerated infrastructure and demonstrates its critical role in driving cloud and AI workloads.
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September 22, 2024
Five Things to Know About the Future of Long Distance Optics
By Michael Kanellos, Head of Influencer Relations, MarvellCoherent optical digital signal processors (DSPs) are the long-haul truckers of the communications world. The chips are essential ingredients in the 600+ subsea Internet cables that crisscross the oceans (see map here) and the extended geographic links weaving together telecommunications networks and clouds.
One of the most critical trends for long-distancer communications has been the shift from large, rack-scale transport equipment boxes running on embedded DSPs often from the same vendor to pluggable modules based on standardized form factors running DSPs from silicon suppliers tuned to the power limits of modules.
With the advent of 800G ZR/ZR+ modules, the market arrives at another turning point. Here’s what you need to know.
It’s the Magic of Modularity
PCs, smartphones, solar panels and other technologies that experienced rapid adoption had one thing in common: general agreement on the key ingredients. By building products around select components, accepted standards and modular form factors, an ecosystem of suppliers sprouted. And for customers that meant fewer shortages, lower prices and accelerated innovation.
The same holds true of pluggable coherent modules. 100 Gbps coherent modules based on the ZR specification debuted in 2017. The modules could deliver data approximately 80 kilometers and consumed approximately 4.5 watts per 100G of data delivered. Microsoft became an early adopter and used the modules to build a mesh of metro data centers1.
Flash forward to 2020. Power per 100G dropped to 4W and distance exploded: 120k connections became possible with modules based on the ZR standard and 400k with the ZR+ standard. (An organization called OIF maintains the ZR standard. ZR+ is controlled by OpenROADM. Module makers often make both varieties. The main difference between the two is the amplifier: the DSPs, number of channels and form factors are the same.) ®
The market responded. 400ZR/ZR+ became adopted more rapidly than any other technology in optical history, according to Cignal AI principal analyst Scott Wilkinson.
“It opened the floodgates to what you could do with coherent technology if you put it in the right form factor,” he said during a recent webinar.
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September 18, 2024
Remembering Sehat Sutardja, Marvell Co-founder
By Michael Kanellos, Head of Influencer Relations, Marvell
Marvell co-founder, Sehat Sutardja, was a visionary leader, brilliant engineer, and a cherished colleague and friend to many at Marvell.
Sehat’s journey began in Jakarta, Indonesia where he would build Van de Graaf generators and other devices with spare parts from his parents’ auto parts store. By 13, he was already a certified radio repair technician, showcasing his innate talent and curiosity. This early interest led him to pursue higher education in the United States, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Iowa State University, followed by a master’s and PhD in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Stephen Lewis, now a professor of electrical and computing engineering at UC Davis, described Sehat as a perfectionist in an article for IEEE Spectrum. As students, they were building analog-to-digital converters. The traditional way to make them involved using two capacitors, one twice the size as the other. “He figured out a way to do it with two identical capacitors, increasing the amplifier speed by increasing its feedback. We had a solution that worked, but he kept digging until he found a better way to do it.”
In 1995, Sehat, wife Weili Dai, and Sehat’s brother Pantas Sutardja founded Marvell Technology around a kitchen table. They chose the name Marvell because they wanted to build a company that could create ‘marvelous’ devices. The first product was a specialized read channel for hard drives that could be produced completely in silicon. Conventional wisdom was that the approach wouldn’t work, Sehat told students during a lecture at Berkeley in 2014. The device, however, reduced power consumption and production cost while elevating performance. Marvell soon became a trusted partner to many of the world’s leading technology companies.
As an inventor and co-inventor, Sehat held over 440 patents. He was recognized as the Inventor of the Year by the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association and named a Fellow of IEEE. He also received the Indonesian Diaspora Lifetime Achievement Award for Global Pioneering and Innovation and frequently spoke at events such as the International Solid State Circuits Conference about the future of semiconductor design and computing.
Beyond his professional accomplishments, Sehat was known for his humility, kindness, and generosity. He was a mentor to many, always willing to share his knowledge and insights. The Marvell team is grateful for his contributions and the legacy he leaves behind through his co-founding of our company.
