The first 1.6Tb/s silicon optical interconnect chip in China has been developed

IT Home December 29 news, recently, China Information and Communication Technology Group Optical Fiber Communication Technology and Network State Key Laboratory, together with the National Information Optoelectronics Innovation Center (NOEIC), Pengcheng Laboratory, took the lead in completing the joint development and functional verification of 1.6Tb / s silicon-based optical transceiver chips in China, realized the first leap of China's silicon optical chip technology to the Tb / s level, and provided a reliable optical chip solution for broadband interconnection in China's next-generation data center.

Optical chip is the key core device in optical communication system, silicon optical chip as the use of silicon photonic technology optical chip, is the silicon optical materials and devices through the characteristic process manufacturing of a new type of integrated circuit. Compared with the traditional three-five material optical chips, due to the use of silicon as the integrated chip substrate, the silicon optical chip has the characteristics of high integration, low cost, and good optical waveguide transmission performance. At present, the international 400G optical transceiver has entered the commercial deployment stage, the development of 800G optical transceiver prototypes and technical standards are being promoted, and the 1.6Tb/s optical transceiver will become the next hot spot for global competition.

IT House learned that in the joint development and functional verification of the 1.6Tb/s silicon-based optical transceiver chip, the researchers have integrated 8 channels of high-speed electro-optical modulators and high-speed photodetectors on a single silicon-based optical transmitter chip and a silicon-based optical receiving chip, each channel can achieve 200Gb/s PAM4 high-speed signal photoelectric and electro-optical conversion, and finally through the chip packaging and system transmission test, completed the single-chip capacity up to 8×200Gb/s optical interconnection technology verification. This work refreshes the best level of single-chip optical interconnection rate and interconnection density in China, showing the outstanding advantages of ultra-high speed, ultra-high density and high scalability of silicon optical technology, providing reliable optical chip solutions for broadband interconnection in next-generation data centers, and providing strong support for the vigorous development of new technologies and new industries such as supercomputing and artificial intelligence.