376 Views

Optical I/O Packaging Boosts FPGA Performance

LinkedIn Facebook X
November 09, 2023

Get a Price Quote

Ayar Labs, a leading technology company, has made a significant breakthrough in high-performance computing by integrating an Intel Agilex FPGA into an optical I/O chiplet package. This integration has resulted in a remarkable achievement, with Ayar Labs claiming that their solution offers 5 times the bandwidth, at 5 times lower power consumption, and 20 times lower latency compared to existing market products.

"We're on the cusp of a new era in high-performance computing as optical I/O becomes a 'must-have' building block for meeting the exponentially growing, data-intensive demands of emerging technologies like generative AI," said Charles Wuischpard, CEO of Ayar Labs.

The optical FPGA consists of two TeraPHY optical I/O chiplets, each capable of delivering an impressive 4 Tbps bi-directional bandwidth. These chiplets are seamlessly connected to a 10 nm FPGA fabric die, which serves as the core fabric used in Intel's Agilex FPGAs.

The optical communication within this innovative solution is powered by two SuperNova light sources, supporting 64 optical channels of high-speed, error-free communication across eight fibers on each chiplet. This configuration enables the delivery of 5 times the bandwidth, while consuming only a fraction of the power (<5pJ/b) and exhibiting significantly lower latency (5ns per chiplet + TOF) compared to current products. These factors are critical for HPC fabrics and disaggregated architectures.

"With Ayar Labs' in-package optics coupled with our FPGA fabric die, we have created I/O bandwidth over 4 Tbps — a capability far greater than what is currently possible with electrical connections," stated Intel's Vice President, Venkat Yadavalli. "We're looking well beyond 400G Ethernet with this capability. Optical interfaces like these have the potential to unlock huge advancements in high-performance computing, AI, data centers, sensing, communications, edge computing, and more. Imagine what you could do with an optical interface FPGA communicating at over 4 Terabits per second."

This remarkable achievement is a testament to the benefits of the emerging chiplet ecosystem. Ayar Labs' optical I/O chiplets, developed on GlobalFoundries' Fotonix monolithic silicon photonics platform, have been seamlessly combined with Intel's FPGA and leading packaging process into a single package. This co-packaged integration has delivered a significant leap in performance without requiring any changes to the underlying compute silicon.

Recent Stories