Low-Power Linear-Drive High-Density Optical Interface for ML/AI

Advanced Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (ML/AI) engines ask for hundreds of Tbps of full-duplex interconnect (input/output, I/O) across multi-row and multi-bay clusters at edge I/O densities in the <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\text{Tbps} / \text{mm}$</tex> range. This emerging requirement substantially exceeds the I/O needs of the latest generation of Ethernet switches. As a result, a new class of high-speed, low-latency, low-power, linear-drive high-density optical interface (HDI/O) has been actively developed over the last few years. The stringent requirements in performance and flexibility in deployments, however, have imposed many challenges which ask for further innovations and also significant standardization efforts.