The processor and technology developing company Intel has announced its new research center. The new research center will be focusing on photonics technology, which is expected to be a new era in the computing area with quantum processing units. Data center interconnects will be the main focus of the research center.
Photonics is the future
The constant need for growing computing capabilities is pushing current silicon-based electronics to their limits quickly. Even if the manufacturing technologies improve, the movement of electrons results in heat production, which translates into the loss of efficiency. The current solution seems to be photonics which Intel is currently investing in.
Intel will focus on accelerating optical input/output technologies and devices such as CMOS circuits, link architecture and package integration, and fiber coupling for data center interconnects with the new research facility. The company recently demonstrated progress in critical technology building blocks for integrated photonics. Light generation, amplification, detection, modulation, CMOS interface circuits, and package integration are essential for advancing next-generation technology.
Intel says that the optical I/O can dramatically outperform the electronic-based solutions in terms of reach, bandwidth density, power consumption, and latency. The company adds that further investments and innovations are needed.
List of participants
Intel has also named the researchers who will participate in the Photonics Research Center for Data Center Interconnects:
- John Bowers, University of California, Santa Barbara
Project: Heterogeneously Integrated Quantum Dot Lasers on Silicon. - Pavan Kumar Hanumolu, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Project: Low-power optical transceivers enabled by duo-binary signaling and baud-rate clock recovery. - Arka Majumdar, University of Washington
Project: Nonvolatile reconfigurable optical switching network for high-bandwidth data communication. - Samuel Palermo, Texas A&M University
Project: Sub-150fJ/b optical transceivers for data center interconnects. - Alan Wang, Oregon State University
Project: 0.5V silicon microring modulators driven by high-mobility transparent conductive oxide. - Ming Wu, University of California, Berkeley
Project: Wafer-scale optical packaging of silicon photonics. - J. Ben Yoo, University of California, Davis
Project: Athermal and power-efficient scalable high-capacity silicon-photonic transceivers.
James Jaussi, senior principal engineer and director of the PHY Research Lab at Intel Labs said:
« At Intel Labs, we’re strong believers that no one organization can successfully turn all the requisite innovations into research reality. By collaborating with some of the top scientific minds from across the United States, Intel is opening the doors for the advancement of integrated photonics for the next generation of compute interconnect. We look forward to working closely with these researchers to explore how we can overcome impending performance barriers. »