PFI-TT: Scalable Silicon Photonic Switches for Data Centers

该PFI项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是引入响应时间快、功耗低的可扩展硅光子开关，以提高数据中心互连网络的容量和效率。由于移动设备和基于云的人工智能、视频流、社交网络以及企业计算/协作需求的应用程序的增加，全球互联网流量继续呈指数级增长。大部分数据流量仍然在数据中心内。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一个都容纳了数十万台服务器，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。响应时间快、功耗低的可扩展光子开关可以提高数据中心的效率和性能。与当前网络中的电子分组交换机不同，光交换与数据速率无关。它支持可编程数据中心网络，允许网络调整其拓扑结构以匹配应用程序的流量模式。拟议的项目将加速可扩展硅光子开关的开发和商业化，并使其广泛应用于数据中心和电信行业。目前市场上的光开关体积大、速度慢、价格昂贵。在这个PFI-TT中，我们建议用全集成（单芯片）硅光子开关取代大块光开关。硅光子学利用互补金属氧化物半导体（CMOS）代工厂以低成本大量生产光子集成电路，利用数万亿美元微电子工业的规模经济。我们使用微机电系统（MEMS）驱动来显著降低光学插入损耗和功耗。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具有可靠可靠性的原型开关和扩大生产的策略。最终目标是成立一家新公司，为数据中心和电信行业提供交换子系统。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.