The newly awarded TITAN project will see Vector Photonics develop a 1310nm, continuous wave (CW) PCSEL for the optical interconnections between servers in next generation, hyperscale, data centres. The 1310nm PCSEL (Photonic Crystal Surface Emitting Laser) will deliver the equivalent system optical performance as the lasers currently used, whilst consuming only half the electrical power and producing far less heat.
Richard Taylor, CTO of Vector Photonics, said, “The lasers being used in the network processing architecture of hyperscale data centres require so much electrical power to operate, that it is the heat they create, and the energy used by the systems which cool them, which has become the limiting factor to increased optical performance. Not only do our low-power consumption, 1310nm, CW PCSELs aim to dramatically reduce the heat produced but also, they are equally applicable to the two, network processing architectures currently evolving – namely co-processor optics and the more traditional, pluggable, direct modulated, laser optical transceivers.
“Increases to system optical performance in hyperscale data centres are being driven by escalating demand from network connected devices, such as smartphones, PCs and the IoT. Power consumption increases as a result. It is therefore only low-power consumption systems using PCSELs that can realistically facilitate the optical performance requirements of the data centres of the future.”
Project TITANs full name is PhoTonIc CrysTal LAsers for EtherNet applications.
