Ericsson, Monday announced that the company-led IRIS project that is co-funded by European Commission has produced a silicon photonics switch designed for housing thousands of optical circuits on a single chip, paving way for a new generation of optical systems integrated in a single device. The new silicon photonics chip which is now in testing & characterization phase increases bandwidth, reduces cost and enables optical routing in the cloud and 5G era, said Ericsson.
The IRIS project aims to create a high-capacity and reconfigurable WDM photonic switch using silicon photonics to monolithically integrate circuits. These new chips will enable network operators to enhance network performance, increasing node capacity as required by future 5G networks and Cloud. This can be achieved by high-scale integration of features, such as high-speed transmission, switching, and interconnectivity in the same chip, said Ericsson.
Peter Christy, Research Director at 451 Research
Optical interconnection will play a critical role in data center evolution. Silicon photonics improves the cost and power efficiency very significantly. The Ericsson cloud initiative and HDS 8000 are early movers in the commercial exploitation of silicon photonics in the datacenter, and systems like this clearly demonstrate the technology's potential.
