Rockley Photonics and the University of Southampton: A Prosperity Partnership

根据思科2016年全球云指数，超大规模数据中心的数量将从2015年底的259个增长到2020年的485个，到2020年将占所有安装的数据中心服务器的47%。这一非凡的增长预测将激怒一个已经在努力科普现有IT基础设施技术的成本和电力需求的行业。Rockley Photonics正在为云计算中心开发高度可扩展的光纤网络和分组交换解决方案。该解决方案的核心将是该公司的TopangaTM光纤接口分组交换专用集成电路（ASIC）。使用TopangaTM ASIC，可以将数十万台服务器在云计算中心联网，而资本支出（CAPEX）和运营支出（OPEX -主要是电力）仅为当前资本支出的一小部分，实现了新兴虚拟现实和机器学习应用所需的上级服务器利用率和更低的通信延迟。Rockley Photonics TopangaTM在业界首次使用硅光子芯片，将波分复用（WDM）与交换机ASIC集成在一起，直接将高带宽的数据引入和引出ASIC。这些芯片使用微型硅光子光电元件（例如调制器），以与ASIC间距匹配的新水平的紧凑性和高密度执行电到光转换，以将电连接长度几乎减少到零。这项拟议的繁荣合作伙伴关系汇集了英国在硅光子学领域的主要行业和学术合作伙伴，Rockley Photonics和南安普顿大学光电研究中心（ORC）的硅光子学小组。Rockley的管理团队已经参与了2家硅光子初创公司，现在Rockley Photonics正在开创这项新兴技术的第三代。ORC团队已经在该领域展示了许多世界第一，并在地球仪中被称为硅光子学领域的先驱团队。这些团队将共同组成一个强大的繁荣合作伙伴关系，通过开发新颖的光信号调制和分配光子解决方案以及整体交换架构，共同努力改变数据中心架构处理大量数据的方式。如果我们成功的话，我们预计这笔资金将产生重大影响。南安普顿大学的硅光子学小组自1989年以来在该领域的开创性工作在国际上享有盛誉。2012年，该小组搬到了南安普顿大学，那里的人数增长了3倍，总共有40多名研究人员。该集团不仅在南安普顿环境中拥有大量的关键合作者，而且在运行和使用洁净室综合体方面发挥着关键作用，使他们在全球范围内拥有设计，制造，原型和测试设施/专业知识。在洁净室综合体的投资超过1.2亿英镑，最近又增加了300万英镑的EPSRC投资，用于光刻扫描能力，可以实现快速原型制作，非常适合促进破坏性光学器件和光学电路研究。合并后的团队将共同开发未来几代Rockley Photonics产品所需的器件和光子电路。

According to the Cisco's 2016 Global Cloud Index, hyperscale data centers will grow from 259 in number at the end of 2015 to 485 by 2020 and will represent 47 percent of all installed data center servers by 2020. This extraordinary growth prediction will exasperate an industry already struggling to cope with the costs and power requirements of existing IT infrastructure technology. Rockley Photonics is developing a highly scalable optical fibre networking and packet switch solution for cloud datacenters. The heart of the solution will be the company's TopangaTM optical fiber interfaced packet switch application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). With the TopangaTM ASIC, one can network up to hundreds of thousands of servers together in cloud datacenters at a fraction of the current capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX - mainly power), achieving greatly superior server utilization and lower communication latency required for emerging virtual reality and machine learning applications. Rockley Photonics TopangaTM for the first time in the industry uses silicon photonics chips incorporating wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) integrated with the switch ASIC to directly bring high bandwidths of data on and off the ASIC. These chips use micro-scale silicon photonic opto-electronic elements (e.g. modulators) to perform the electrical-to-opical conversions with new levels of compactness and high densities pitch-matched to the ASICs to reduce electrical connection length almost to zero.This proposed Prosperity Partnership brings together the UK's premier industry and academic partners in the field of Silicon Photonics, Rockley Photonics and The Silicon Photonics Group at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), University of Southampton. The management team at Rockley have already been involved in 2 Silicon Photonics start-up companies and now Rockley Photonics is pioneering the 3rd generation of this emerging technology. The ORC team have demonstrated numerous world firsts in the field, and are known around the globe as a pioneering team in the field of Silicon Photonics. Together these teams will form a formidable Prosperity Partnership that will work together to transform the way in which data centre architectures handle vast quantities of data by developing novel photonic solutions to the modulation and distribution of optical signals, and the overall switching architectures. We anticipate significant impact from the funding, should we be successful.The Silicon Photonics Group at the University of Southampton are well known internationally for pioneering work in the field since 1989. In 2012 the group moved to Southampton University where the head count has since grown by a factor of x3 to more than 40 researchers in total. Not only do the group have a large number of key collaborators within the Southampton environment, but also play a key role in running and using the clean room complex, putting them in a unique position worldwide in having design, fabrication, prototyping and testing facilities/expertise. The investment of more than £120 Million in the cleanroom complex has recently been enhanced by a £3million EPSRC investment in a photolithography scanning capability which enables fast prototyping, ideal for facilitating disruptive optical device and optical circuit research.Together the combined teams will develop the devices and photonic circuits necessary for future generations of Rockley Photonics products.