Cheng Qixiang, Rumley Sébastien, Bahadori Meisam, Bergman Keren
Opt Express. 2018 Jun 11;26(12):16022-16043. doi: 10.1364/OE.26.016022.
Photonic switches are increasingly considered for insertion in high performance datacenter architectures to meet the growing performance demands of interconnection networks. We provide an overview of photonic switching technologies and develop an evaluation methodology for assessing their potential impact on datacenter performance. We begin with a review of three categories of optical switches, namely, free-space switches, III-V integrated switches and silicon integrated switches. The state-of-the-art of MEMS, LCOS, SOA, MZI and MRR switching technologies are covered, together with insights on their performance limitations and scalability considerations. The performance metrics that are required for optical switches to truly emerge in datacenters are discussed and summarized, with special focus on the switching time, cost, power consumption, scalability and optical power penalty. Furthermore, the Pareto front of the switch metric space is analyzed. Finally, we propose a hybrid integrated switch fabric design using the III-V/Si wafer bonding technique and investigate its potential impact on realizing reduced cost and power penalty.
为满足互连网络不断增长的性能需求，光子开关越来越多地被考虑用于插入高性能数据中心架构。我们概述了光子交换技术，并开发了一种评估方法来评估它们对数据中心性能的潜在影响。我们首先回顾三类光开关，即自由空间开关、III-V族集成开关和硅集成开关。涵盖了MEMS、LCOS、SOA、MZI和MRR交换技术的最新进展，以及对其性能限制和可扩展性考虑因素的见解。讨论并总结了光开关要在数据中心真正应用所需的性能指标，特别关注开关时间、成本、功耗、可扩展性和光功率代价。此外，还分析了开关指标空间的帕累托前沿。最后，我们提出了一种使用III-V族/硅晶圆键合技术的混合集成交换矩阵设计，并研究了其对实现降低成本和光功率代价的潜在影响。
