Intel’s optical compute interconnect chiplet
is expected to revolutionize high-speed data processing for AI
infrastructure.
What’s New: Intel Corporation has achieved a
revolutionary milestone in integrated photonics technology for
high-speed data transmission. At the Optical Fiber Communication
Conference (OFC) 2024, Intel’s Integrated Photonics Solutions (IPS)
Group demonstrated the industry’s most advanced and first-ever
fully integrated optical compute interconnect (OCI) chiplet
co-packaged with an Intel CPU and running live data. Intel’s OCI
chiplet represents a leap forward in high-bandwidth interconnect by
enabling co-packaged optical input/output (I/O) in emerging AI
infrastructure for data centers and high performance computing
(HPC) applications.
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Intel Corporation’s Integrated Photonics
Solutions (IPS) Group has demonstrated the industry’s first fully
integrated optical compute interconnect (OCI) chiplet co-packaged
with an Intel CPU and running live data. Intel’s OCI chiplet
enables co-packaged optical input/output in emerging AI
infrastructure for data centers and high performance computing
applications. (Credit: Intel Corporation)
“The ever-increasing movement of data from
server to server is straining the capabilities of today’s data
center infrastructure, and current solutions are rapidly
approaching the practical limits of electrical I/O performance.
However, Intel’s groundbreaking achievement empowers customers to
seamlessly integrate co-packaged silicon photonics interconnect
solutions into next-generation compute systems. Our OCI chiplet
boosts bandwidth, reduces power consumption and increases reach,
enabling ML workload acceleration that promises to revolutionize
high-performance AI infrastructure.” --Thomas Liljeberg, senior
director, Product Management and Strategy, Integrated Photonics
Solutions (IPS) Group
What It Does: This first OCI chiplet is designed to
support 64 channels of 32 gigabits per second (Gbps) data
transmission in each direction on up to 100 meters of fiber optics
and is expected to address AI infrastructure’s growing demands for
higher bandwidth, lower power consumption and longer reach. It
enables future scalability of CPU/GPU cluster connectivity and
novel compute architectures, including coherent memory expansion
and resource disaggregation.
Why It Matters: AI-based applications are increasingly
deployed globally, and recent developments in large language models
(LLM) and generative AI are accelerating that trend. Larger and
more efficient machine learning (ML) models will play a key role in
addressing the emerging requirements of AI acceleration workloads.
The need to scale future computing platforms for AI is driving
exponential growth in I/O bandwidth and longer reach to support
larger processing unit (CPU/GPU/IPU) clusters and architectures
with more efficient resource utilization, such as xPU
disaggregation and memory pooling.
Electrical I/O (i.e., copper trace connectivity) supports high
bandwidth density and low power, but only offers short reaches of
about one meter or less. Pluggable optical transceiver modules used
in data centers and early AI clusters can increase reach at cost
and power levels that are not sustainable with the scaling
requirements of AI workloads. A co-packaged xPU optical I/O
solution can support higher bandwidths with improved power
efficiency, low latency and longer reach – exactly what AI/ML
infrastructure scaling requires.
As an analogy, replacing electrical I/O with optical I/O in CPUs
and GPUs to transfer data is like going from using horse carriages
to distribute goods, limited in capacity and range, to using cars
and trucks that can deliver much larger quantities of goods over
much longer distances. This level of improved performance and
energy cost is what optical I/O solutions like Intel’s OCI chiplet
emerging bring to AI scaling.
How It Works: The fully Integrated OCI chiplet leverages
Intel’s field-proven silicon photonics technology and integrates a
silicon photonics integrated circuit (PIC), which includes on-chip
lasers and optical amplifiers, with an electrical IC. The OCI
chiplet demonstrated at OFC was co-packaged with an Intel CPU but
can also be integrated with next-generation CPUs, GPUs, IPUs and
other system-on-chips (SoCs).
This first OCI implementation supports up to 4 terabits per
second (Tbps) bidirectional data transfer, compatible with
peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) Gen5. The live
optical link demonstration showcases a transmitter (Tx) and
receiver (Rx) connection between two CPU platforms over a
single-mode fiber (SMF) patch cord. The CPUs generated and measured
the optical Bit Error Rate (BER), and the demo showcases the Tx
optical spectrum with 8 wavelengths at 200 gigahertz (GHz) spacing
on a single fiber, along with a 32 Gbps Tx eye diagram illustrating
strong signal quality.
The current chiplet supports 64 channels of 32 Gbps data in each
direction up to 100 meters (though practical applications may be
limited to tens of meters due to time-of-flight latency), utilizing
eight fiber pairs, each carrying eight dense wavelength division
multiplexing (DWDM) wavelengths. The co-packaged solution is also
remarkably energy efficient, consuming only 5 pico-Joules (pJ) per
bit compared to pluggable optical transceiver modules at about 15
pJ/bit. This level of hyper-efficiency is critical for data centers
and high-performance computing environments and could help address
AI’s unsustainable power requirements.
About Intel’s Leadership in Silicon Photonics: As a
market leader in silicon photonics, Intel leverages more than 25
years of internal research from Intel Labs, which pioneered
integrated photonics. Intel was the first company to develop and
ship silicon photonics-based connectivity products with
industry-leading reliability at high volume to major cloud service
providers.
Intel’s main differentiator is unparalleled integration using
hybrid laser-on-wafer technology and direct integration, which
yield higher reliability and lower costs. This unique approach
enables Intel to deliver superior performance while maintaining
efficiency. Intel’s robust, high-volume platform boasts shipping
over 8 million PICs with over 32 million integrated on-chip lasers,
showing a laser failures-in-time (FIT) rate of less than 0.1, a
widely utilized measure of reliability that represents failure
rates and how many failures occur.
These PICs were packaged in pluggable transceiver modules,
deployed in large data center networks at major hyperscale cloud
service providers for 100, 200, and 400 Gbps applications. Next
generation, 200G/lane PICs to support emerging 800 Gbps and 1.6
Tbps applications are under development.
Intel is also implementing a new silicon photonics fab process
node with state-of-the-art (SOA) device performance, higher
density, better coupling and vastly improved economics. Intel
continues to make advancements in on-chip laser and SOA
performance, cost (greater than 40% die area reduction) and power
(greater than 15% reduction).
What’s Next: Intel’s current OCI chiplet is a prototype.
Intel is working with select customers to co-package OCI with their
SOCs as an optical I/O solution.
Intel’s OCI chiplet represents a leap forward in high-speed data
transmission. As the AI infrastructure landscape evolves, Intel
remains at the forefront, driving innovation and shaping the future
of connectivity.
More Context: Intel Silicon Photonics (Intel.com)
About Intel
Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is an industry leader, creating
world-changing technology that enables global progress and enriches
lives. Inspired by Moore’s Law, we continuously work to advance the
design and manufacturing of semiconductors to help address our
customers’ greatest challenges. By embedding intelligence in the
cloud, network, edge and every kind of computing device, we unleash
the potential of data to transform business and society for the
better. To learn more about Intel’s innovations, go to
newsroom.intel.com and intel.com.
© Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo and other Intel marks
are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other
names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
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Laura Stadler 1-619-346-1170 laura.stadler@intel.com
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