Intel Corp. announced a major achievement in the development of integrated photonics technology for high-speed data transfers. The company unveiled the industry’s first fully integrated optical computing interconnect (OCI) chiplet, which was showcased alongside a central processing unit at the 2024 Fiber Optic Communication Conference. This new chip represents a significant advancement in high-bandwidth data interconnect performance.
Silicon photonics technology, which combines silicon integrated circuits with semiconductor lasers, enables faster data transfers over longer distances compared to traditional electronics. It not only supports higher bandwidth data transfers but also allows for software-configurable access to computing and storage resources. This technology is crucial for supporting the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) models that demand increasing amounts of data and strain existing data center infrastructures.
Intel has been at the forefront of research on silicon photonics and unveiled a breakthrough in co-packaged optics in 2022, paving the way for fully integrated photonics. The company’s OCI chiplet offers increased bandwidth, reduced power consumption, and extended range to support machine learning workload acceleration and revolutionize high-performance AI infrastructure.
The OCI chiplet can transmit data at a maximum of 64 channels of 32 gigabytes per second in each direction over up to 100 meters of fiber optic cables. This capability allows data center operators to expand clusters composed of CPUs and graphics processing units. Intel highlighted the difference between traditional electrical I/O interconnects and its new OCI chip by using an analogy of houses on the same block communicating with neighbors versus using a motorcycle to transport goods over a longer distance.
Although the OCI chiplet is still in the prototype stage, Intel is collaborating with select customers to integrate it into their existing systems-on-chip as an optical I/O solution. The company emphasized the importance of silicon photonics in meeting the demands of AI development and improving data center infrastructure.
Intel’s achievement in developing the OCI chiplet marks a significant step towards integrating photonics technology with silicon-based CPUs and enhancing high-speed data transfers for AI applications. This advancement underscores the company’s commitment to advancing technology and addressing the evolving needs of the computing industry.
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https://siliconangle.com/2024/06/26/intel-shows-off-first-fully-integrated-optical-compute-interconnect-designed-scale-ai-workloads/