Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Inphi debuts its next-gen 400G DR4 silicon photonics platform

Inphi has begun sampling its next-generation 400G DR4 silicon photonics platform solution, which includes a silicon photonics integrated circuit (PIC), a flip chip transimpedance amplifier (TIA), and an analog controller.

The new 400G DR silicon photonics platform is designed to work seamlessly with Inphi’s Porrima PAM4 Digital Signal Processor (DSP).

400G DR silicon photonics platform highlights:

  • Analog controller IC which replaces multiple discrete components for laser bias, configuration and monitoring of silicon photonics, and TIA control 
  • Inphi’s complete silicon photonics transceiver with four low-loss, transmit Mach-Zehnder modulators and four high-responsivity, receive photodiodes
  • Low-power, flip chip TIA with excellent sensitivity, overload, and error floor
  • Inphi’s Porrima Gen3 low-power, PAM4 DSP with integrated 56Gbaud laser driver 

Inphi said it is bringing its high volume silicon wafer scale manufacturing by offering the option to purchase Inphi-designed high-performance 400G DR4 PICs in full 200-mm wafer form. Customers receive silicon PIC wafers direct from an Inphi fab partner and will be able to continue with high-volume wafer scale manufacturing and 3-D heterogenous integration in their own factories. 


“Inphi has been the leading force to define and create a PAM4 ecosystem of optical modules for cloud and data center networks,” said Dr. Loi Nguyen, Founder and SVP, Optical Interconnect at Inphi. “I believe today’s announcement will mark the beginning of a new era of the ‘fabless optics’ industry. Optical transceiver manufacturers can leverage silicon high volume wafer scale in the manufacturing of transceivers without owning a fab.”

http://www.inphi.com