Molex Creates the First 100 Gbps Optical Transceiver

Light-based transmissions are seen as the next step in transferring data from one place to another and Molex just announced a chip meant to direct that very sort of operation.

The single chip CMOS photonics-based 100 Gbps optical interconnect were made in collaboration with Luxtera.

Four 28 Gbps transmit and receive channels are powered by a single laser, hence the high rate.

Currently, system architects and hardware designers are wrestling with the challenge of overcoming all the complications that show up when trying to go over 25 Gbps.

The new Molex CMOS should have everything it needs for OTN and InfiniBand applications, not just 100 Gbps Ethernet, and can maintain OIF Short Reach and Very Short Reach electrical interconnect to host systems as well.

From a practical standpoint, everything from cloud systems to supercomputers should benefit.

“The elusive promise of silicon photonics is finally being realized as Molex continues to ship volume of silicon photonic-based active optical cables, recognized widely for their best in class power consumption, performance and reliability,” states Marek Tlalka, director of marketing, Luxtera.

“Due to the fundamental advantages and performance headroom offered by silicon photonics, scaling to 100 Gbps and beyond on a single piece of silicon is a straightforward migration. We plan to drive aggressively to terabit and multi-terabit single chip connectivity and are excited by the opportunities ahead for this partnership.”

The invention of this new Molex device was allowed by the company's acquisition of Luxtera’s Active Optical Cable product line.

That said, the 100 Gbps integrated optical transceivers will be both complete end-to-end interconnect systems and direct board-mounted solutions.

“Our strategic collaboration with Luxtera has yielded significant benefits and made it possible to blend scalability and high reliability, regardless of speed or channel count,” states Tom Marrapode, director of marketing, fiber optic products, Molex.

“In working closely with system architects, signal integrity engineers and hardware designers to solve the many challenges of 25 Gbps+ I/O within and across customers’ next generation systems, we have reaffirmed the value CMOS photonics-based interconnect devices can deliver.”