PFI-TT: Scalable Silicon Photonic Switches for Data Centers

这个PFI项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是引入具有快速响应时间和低功耗的可扩展硅光子交换机，以提高数据中心互联网络的容量和效率。全球互联网流量继续呈指数级增长，这得益于人工智能、视频流、社交网络以及企业计算/协作需求的移动设备和基于云的应用程序的增加。大部分数据流量仍保留在数据中心内。超大规模数据中心的数量将在五年内翻一番。这些超大规模数据中心中的每个都容纳了数十万台服务器，并消耗了100兆瓦的电力。如果不从根本上改变数据中心的设计方式，这种增长是不可持续的。可扩展的光子交换机具有快速响应时间和低功耗的特点，可以提高数据中心的效率和性能。与当前网络中的电分组交换不同，光交换与数据速率无关。它支持可编程的数据中心网络，允许网络调整其拓扑结构以匹配应用的流量模式。拟议的项目将加快可扩展硅光子交换机的开发和商业化，并使其广泛应用于数据中心和电信行业。目前市场上的光交换机体积大、速度慢、价格昂贵。在这个PFI-TT中，我们建议用全集成(单芯片)硅光子开关来取代体光开关。硅光电子利用互补金属氧化物半导体(CMOS)铸造厂以低成本批量生产光子集成电路，利用数万亿美元微电子行业的规模经济。我们使用微电子机械系统(MEMS)驱动来显著降低光插入损耗和功耗。具有微秒级响应时间和低光损耗的硅光子开关将给数据中心网络带来革命性的变化。该计划的预期产出包括一个经过验证的可靠性的原型交换机和扩大生产规模的战略。最终目标是建立一家新的公司，建立向数据中心和电信行业供应的交换子系统。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this PFI project is to introduce scalable silicon photonic switches with fast response time and low power consumption to enhance the capacity and efficiency of the interconnect networks in data centers. The global internet traffic has continued to grow exponentially, fueled by the increase of mobile devices and cloud-based applications for artificial intelligence, video streaming, social networking as well as enterprise compute/collaborate needs. A majority of the data traffic remains within the datacenter. The number of hyperscale datacenters will double in five years. Each of these hyperscale datacenters houses hundreds of thousands of servers and consumes 100 MW of power. Such growth is not sustainable without fundamental changes in how datacenter is designed. Scalable photonic switches with fast response time and low power consumption can improve the efficiency and performance of datacenters. Optical switching is agnostic to data rate, unlike the electrical packet switches in current networks. It enables programmable datacenter networks, allowing the network to adjust its topology to match the traffic patterns of applications.The proposed project will accelerate the development and commercialization of scalable silicon photonic switches and make them widely available to datacenters and telecommunication industry. Current optical switches in the market are bulky, slow, and expensive. In this PFI-TT, we propose to replace the bulk optical switches with fully integrated (single chip) silicon photonic switches. Silicon photonics use complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) foundries to mass produce photonic integrated circuits at low cost, leveraging economies of scale of the multi-trillion-dollar microelectronics industry. We use micro-electro-mechanical-system (MEMS) actuation to dramatically reduce the optical insertion loss and power consumption. Silicon photonic switches with microsecond response time and low optical loss will revolutionize datacenter networks. The anticipated outputs of this program include a prototype switch with proven reliability and a strategy to scale up production. The ultimate goal is to spin out a new company building switching subsystems supplying to both datacenter and the telecommunications industry.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.