THE ROLE OF CO-PACKAGED OPTICS IN OUR CONNECTED FUTURE

Progress in computation and communication is increasingly bottlenecked by integrated circuit I/0. CMOS technology scaling has enabled the integration of hundreds of complete modems operating over 100Gbps on a single chip. Whereas optical links were previously reserved for communication over 100’s of kilometres, they are now the primary solution for chip-to-chip links above 100 Gbps over any distance beyond a few metres. Co-packaged optics (CPO) bring optics right to the perimeter of our electronic integrated circuits, and may therefore appear to be a natural continuation of this trend.
Indeed, PO holds the promise of simultaneously lowering system power consumption, decreasing I/0 latency, and increasing the total bandwidth of chip I/O. And yet, at the same time, it has the potential to increase the power density, increase the cost, and limit the bandwidth density of our
chio I/O. This talk will clarify these seeming contradictions, and paint a realistic picture of CPO’s role in future connectivity.
Co-sponsored by: SPIE OPTICA Student Chapter
Speaker(s): Dr. Tony Chan Carusone,
Room: GB119, Bldg: Galbraith Building, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada