DustPhotonics: High Speed and Bigger Pipes-No Longer Problematic!

There has been a rapid growth in the amount of computing horsepower flowing through data centers and the high-performance computing (HPC) ecosystem. Driven by the endless benefits of processing performance, power optimization, and architectural innovation—high-end optical transceivers and “bigger pipes” have become the need of the hour. Data rates have gone from 10G to 100G, having made a significant jump to 400G with 800Glooming just over the horizon. Although actual optical devices will have a higher price per unit, organizations ache for lower costs per bit ($/G) and power per bit (W/G). Founded in 2017, DustPhotonics designs and manufactures high-end optical transceivers powered by their proprietary AuraDP™ technology that is designed for low-cost, high volume manufacturing. The company aims to target the “Bigger Pipes - Bigger Problems” complexity with their high-speed next-generation data center optics. DustPhotonics notes, “With an increase in speed comes increased complexity, an increase in power, and an implied lowering of mean time to failure (MTTF).” These factors impress a severe challenge on data centers with their high-volume optical connectivity. While HPC doesn’t have the data center connectivity volume, connectivity failure in a multimillion-dollar system is not allowed within the life of the machine. “Our technology allows the maximum coupling of light energy between the optics to the fiber thereby reducing power, optical device temperature and improving MTTF for all data rates,” says Ben Rubovitch, the CEO of DustPhotonics.

Performance is paramount, and links of 100G and 400G must have bit error rates of 10E-8. This reduces the requirements of forward error correction (FEC), adding an overhead of up to 10 percent of the data and increases latency, with link lengths extending beyond 100m to up to 300m on multimode fiber. “We address this by providing 100G and 400G Active Optical Cable (AOC) solutions to assure performance that transceivers and cables on their own cannot,” says Rubovitch. He continues, “AuraDP™ is a revolutionary technology that reduces the complexity of coupling the optical devices to the fiber enabling high volume manufacturing and reducing power, heat and improving reliability.”