IBM Chip uses Light to Transfer Data at 100Gbps

After a decade of research, IBM has finally developed a new silicon photonics chip that can transfer data at the speed of 100 Gbps. These are designed for data centers and reference chips can transfer data over a distance of two kilometers using light pulses. It can be used in data centers to link storage, networking and servers. This technology is not going to be in Personal Computers or Handheld devices anytime soon as IBM is aiming to get it in data centers because of its advantageous high bandwidth optical fiber connection.

There is also demand for more computing power in servers with applications like analytics, machine learning and big data. Optical connections could help dozens of processors communicate on a server rack, making it easier to break up processes over multiple resources, said Richard Doherty, research director at The Envisioneering Group. “Optical connections could make servers much like storage drives, which can be easily hot-swapped depending on processing needs in data centers” he added.

The Optical technology used in telecom is different from what IBM offers, their silicon photonics chip is cheaper and is meant for shorter distances. IBM’s single-fiber implementations are considered to be better than Intel’s MXC optical cables.

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Image courtesy of WallSide.