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Posts Tagged 'PAM4 DSP-based Optical Connectivity'

  • September 22, 2024

    Five Things to Know About the Future of Long Distance Optics

    By Michael Kanellos, Head of Influencer Relations, Marvell

    Coherent 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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  • June 02, 2024

    A Deep Dive into the Copper and Optical Interconnects Weaving AI Clusters Together

    This article is part three in a series on talks delivered at Accelerated Infrastructure for the AI Era, a one-day symposium held by Marvell in April 2024.

    Twenty-five years ago, network bandwidth ran at 100 Mbps, and it was aspirational to think about moving to 1 Gbps over optical. Today, links are running at 1 Tbps over optical, or 10,000 times faster than cutting edge speeds two decades ago.

    Another interesting fact. “Every single large language model today runs on compute clusters that are enabled by Marvell’s connectivity silicon,” said Achyut Shah, senior vice president and general manager of Connectivity at Marvell.

    To keep ahead of what customers need, Marvell continually seeks to boost capacity, speed, and performance of the digital signal processors (DSPs), transimpedance amplifiers or TIAs, drivers, firmware and other components inside interconnects. It’s an interdisciplinary endeavor involving expertise in high frequency analog, mixed signal, digital, firmware, software and other technologies. The following is a map to the different components and challenges shaping the future of interconnects and how that future will shape AI.

    Inside the Data Center

    From a high level, optical interconnects perform the task their name implies: they deliver data from one place to another while keeping errors from creeping in during transmission. Another important task, however, is enabling data center operators to scale quickly and reliably.

    “When our customers deploy networks, they don’t start deploying hundreds or thousands at a time,” said Shah. “They have these massive data center clusters—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of (computing) units—that all need to work and come up at the exact same time. These are at multiple locations, across different data centers. The DSP helps ensure that they don’t have to fine tune every link by hand.”

    Optical Interconnect Module

     

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  • June 27, 2023

    Scaling AI Infrastructure with High-Speed Optical Connectivity

    By Suhas Nayak, Senior Director of Solutions Marketing, Marvell

     

    In the world of artificial intelligence (AI), where compute performance often steals the spotlight, there's an unsung hero working tirelessly behind the scenes. It's something that connects the dots and propels AI platforms to new frontiers. Welcome to the realm of optical connectivity, where data transfer becomes lightning-fast and AI's true potential is unleashed. But wait, before you dismiss the idea of optical connectivity as just another technical detail, let's pause and reflect. Think about it: every breakthrough in AI, every mind-bending innovation, is built on the shoulders of data—massive amounts of it. And to keep up with the insatiable appetite of AI workloads, we need more than just raw compute power. We need a seamless, high-speed highway that allows data to flow freely, powering AI platforms to conquer new challenges. 

    In this post, I’ll explain the importance of optical connectivity, particularly the role of DSP-based optical connectivity, in driving scalable AI platforms in the cloud. So, buckle up, get ready to embark on a journey where we unlock the true power of AI together. 

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