Microchip Technologies and Acacia are expanding their ongoing collaboration for optical Data Center Interconnect (DCI) and metro transport network solutions with a fourth-generation platform capable of data transport rates up to 1.2 Tbps using the Microchip META-DX2 Ethernet PHY and Acacia’s Coherent Interconnect Module 8 (CIM 8).
With the rise of AI and cloud computing services, the volume of data that needs to be shared between data centers and across metro networks is rapidly increasing. To meet these emerging requirements tera-bit scale data transport solutions are now required.
Microchip-Acacia 1.2 Tbps transport solution. Image used courtesy of Microchip.
With their latest fourth-generation interoperable solution, Microchip and Acacia are delivering a low power, bandwidth-optimized and scalable optical DCI and metro transport network solution that is capable of meeting next generation data transport needs.
Data Center Interconnect (DCI) and Metro Transport Networks
With the growth of AI/ML and cloud computing services that demand more and more data, cloud infrastructure operators are responding by expanding their global data networks.
These networks are often built on leased or owned dark optical fiber and require high speed optical data transport solutions to modulate, transmit and receive the large amounts of digital data that transit across the network.
Processor load balancing within a metro transport network. Image used courtesy of Acacia.
To meet growing demand for their data processing resources, data center operators are increasing inter-datacenter traffic for load balancing purposes and to distribute processing requirements across multiple data centers .
When data is transported between central office and data centers within a larger metro area this is referred to as a metro transport network.
Acacia Optical Module
Acacia’s optical interconnect modules are constructed with proprietary, application specific digital signal processing (DSP) chips and silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs) that modulate and demodulate network digital data for transmission across optical fiber.
For its technology, Acacia uses mature and low power complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuits that offer a balance between affordability, reliability and performance.
Optical interconnect module technology. Image used courtesy of Acacia.
The CIM 8 provides 1.2 Tbps of data transmission capacity over a single optical wavelength within a 150 GHz channel and is powered by Acacia’s 8th generation 5 nm CMOS Jannu DSP ASIC. It is designed for use in cloud/DCI, metro, long-haul and submarine optical transport networks.
META-DX2 Ethernet PHY
The META-DX2 is a multi-purpose Ethernet physical layer transceiver (PHY) chip that encodes and decodes data from the data center network processor into the proper protocols for the optical network.
Operating in tandem with the Acacia CIM 8, the META-DX2 helps convert digital bits to optical signals for transmission across the fiber network (and optical signals to bits in receive mode).
Applications for the META-DX family. Image used courtesy of Microchip.
The META-DX2 PHY uses Microchip’s proprietary Lambda Splitting feature to split digital Ethernet data streams (400 GbE or 800 GbE) across multiple wavelengths generated by the CIM 8 module to maximize inter-data center transmission rates.
The designed interoperability between the META-DX2 PHY and CIM 8 helps to optimize performance of the optical network interface and reduce design risk for Cloud/DCI and metro network transport applications.
Shrinking Time-to-Market, Speeding Deployments
According to Markus Weber, senior director DSP product line management at Acacia, his company’s collaboration with Microchip, and the proven interoperability of CIM 8 coherent modules with Microchip’s META-DX2, will reduce time to market for system implementations and accelerate the deployment of high bandwidth DWDM (dense wavelength-division multiplexing) connectivity solutions between data centers and across metro transport systems.
