Free Space Intra-Datacenter Interconnects Based on 2D Optical Beam Steering Enabled by Photonic Integrated Circuits

• DOI: 10.3390/photonics5030021
• Publication Date: 2018-08-01T15:22:34Z
• Authors: Charidimos Chaint...; Behnam Shariati; Adonis Bogris; Paul V. Dijk; Chris G. H. Roelo...; Jerome Bourderionnet; Ioannis Tomkos; Dimitris Syvridis
• Keywords: Control reconfiguration; Data center; Optical interconnect; Provisioning; Optical burst switching; Beam steering

Data centers are continuously growing in scale and can contain more than one million servers spreading across thousands of racks; requiring a large-scale switching network to provide broadband reconfigurable interconnections low latency. Traditional data center architectures, through the use electrical packet switches multi-tier topology, has fundamental weaknesses such as oversubscription cabling complexity. Wireless intra-data interconnection solutions have been proposed deal with problem simultaneously address over-provisioning by offering efficient topology re-configurability. In this work we introduce novel free space optical interconnect solution for networks that utilizes 2D beam steering transmitter, high bandwidth wide-area photodiode arrays receiver. This new breed interconnects be developed on photonic integrated circuit; ns at sub-μW consumption. The together networking architecture is suitable utilizing those devices could support next generation networks, fulfilling requirements seamless operation, connectivity, agility terms reconfiguration time.