New Modulator Increases Speed and Scale to 224G/λ for Future High-Speed Applications

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- OpenLight today announced that it developed and successfully demonstrated a 224G InP-based modulator available for Tower's PH18DA platform. Measured as part of a fully operational photonic integrated circuit (PIC), OpenLight extended the speed of its PAM4 modulator and demonstrated a PAM4 224G eye.

This new 224G modulator is integrated on a demonstration PIC with a heterogeneous integrated laser and other required silicon photonics components to enable a full transmitter. Fabricating these components on a heterogeneous SiPh platform enables significant gains in yield, decrease of production complexity, and improved performance. 

Datacom customers can now extend their multi-lane DR and FR based datacom designs to 224G per wavelength, doubling overall speed without increasing PIC cost.

"This new modulator doubles the speed of every PIC," said Dr. Adam Carter, Chief Executive Officer at OpenLight. "For instance, our 800G DR8 PIC which was recently announced can become a 1.6T PIC (8x200G). Alternatively, a 400G DR4 PIC can now deliver 800G with four lanes. Our latest offering allows datacom customers to not only prepare for the future, but also keep up with the growing need for increased connectivity speeds."

"Our partnership with OpenLight continues to augment capability offered to all our silicon photonics foundry customers," said Dr. Marco Racanelli, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Tower Semiconductor's Analog Business Unit. "OpenLight's technology through Tower Semiconductor allows customers to achieve 224G operation on a silicon photonics platform and achieve the same benefits offered by on-chip lasers and optical gain without the need for separate lasers and costly attachment methods."

"200G modulation is a key building block and critical path to the delivery of next generation Ethernet speeds based upon 200G/lane," said Jim Theodoras, Vice President of Research and Development at HGGenuine USA. "This is not just a 200G modulator, but one that is available in a hybrid photonic integrated circuit. Next generation Ethernet cannot be delivered at the power and densities being requested by datacom customers without photonic integrated circuits, and we are happy to partner with OpenLight on their industry leading PIC technology that will enable not just 1.6T today, but also 3.2T in the near future."  

"As the demand for higher data rates continues to grow unabated, the development of advanced technologies to meet these needs becomes ever more crucial," said Sameh Boujelbene, Vice President Datacenter and Campus Ethernet Switch Market Research at Dell'Oro Group. "200G/channel optical links will be crucial in bringing 1.6Tb and 3.2Tb optical links at the right density and power consumption in parallel with the release of next generation Serdes for use in a variety of architectures to support the massive bandwidth scaling required for cloud, AI/ML and HPC applications." 

OpenLight is now offering early access packages for its 224G modulator, enabling customers to begin designing PICs based on the latest modulator offering. Evaluation vehicles will be made available later this year for customers to enable testing of OpenLight's 224G modulator. 

To get in touch with OpenLight for die-level sample availability and pricing, please reach out to info@openlightphotonics.com. 

About OpenLight
OpenLight has decades of experience in photonics design. Our executive and engineering teams are delivering the world's first open silicon photonics platform with integrated lasers to improve the performance, power efficiency, and reliability of designs for telecom, datacom, LiDAR, healthcare, HPC, AI, and optical computing applications. With over 200 patents, OpenLight is bringing optical solutions to places it has never been before and enabling technologies and innovation that weren't previously possible. The company is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA with offices in Silicon Valley. Read more at www.openlightphotonics.com.