10 June 2016

ADVA joins EU-funded DIMENSION project for single-chip electro-optical integration in data centers

Germany's ADVA Optical Networking says that it is playing a key role in the four-year project Directly Modulated Lasers on Silicon (DIMENSION), which aims to create a platform for single-chip electro-optical integration, taking electro-optical integration to a new level by producing silicon chips built with active laser components. The technology it produces will involve lasers built with active III-V materials embedded into silicon photonics chips, generating the versatile, cost-efficient components needed to optimize data-center interconnect (DCI) transport and creating the next generation of data centers.

Funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and running until the end of January 2020, DIMENSION brings together a consortium of research and industry partners from four European countries: Germany, Switzerland, Greece and the UK. Coordinated by Germany's Dresden University of Technology, the two research centers included are Germany's Innovations for High Performance Microelectronics (IHP GmbH) and Greece's AIT (Athens Information Technology) Center of Excellence for Research and Education. The large industry partners are ADVA Optical Networking, Optocap Ltd of Livingston, Scotland, UK and Switzerland-based IBM Research – Zurich. The consortium of partners also forms a complete value chain for the production of the new technology, from research through to innovative package design and assembly.

"DIMENSION unites specialists from different fields and enables us to address the complete value chain of directly modulated lasers, from materials research to application," says Bert Offrein, manager, photonics, IBM Research – Zurich. "What we're bringing to the table is a lot of experience with transformational data-center innovation," he adds. "We're focusing on incorporating highly efficient III-V materials into silicon chips. Our role is to design and produce the integrated active optical components," Offrein continues. ."This technology will bring the optics to where the data is generated, and that leads to improvements in every part of the data center. By enhancing interconnections at different reaches, from centimeters up to kilometers, we'll be able to reduce size, cost and power on links between boards, computers and facilities."

"Improving efficiency in the data-center interconnect (DCI) couldn't be more vital given the increasing demand for cloud computing and the growing scale of the Internet of Things," comments Michael Eiselt, director, advanced technology, ADVA Optical Networking. "Much of our recent innovation has centered on enhancing the DCI, such as our FSP 3000 CloudConnect solution," he adds. "By integrating the three distinct technologies of silicon photonics, electronics and active photonics, we're giving data centers what they need to meet tomorrow's demands."  

Tags: III-Vs-on-Si silicon photonics

Visit: http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/199148_en.html

Visit: www.advaoptical.com