DustPhotonics has been recognized by CIOReview Magazine as the recipient of “Top 20 HPC Solution Companies - 2019,” based on our proprietary methodology, reflecting its position in the industry. This profile has been developed by the CIOReview research and editorial team based on insights from an interview with Ben Rubovitch, CEO.

DustPhotonics
High Speed and Bigger Pipes-No Longer Problematic!

Ben Rubovitch, CEO

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.”

It is a multimode fiber alignment technology for short and mid-range fiber lengths of up to 300m. This is where the majority of connectivity occurs in the data center – from server to Top of Rack (ToR) switches and from ToR to Leaf switches.

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

Traditionally, competing in an MSA compliant based market is dependent on price, all related to driving volumes and lowering the cost of goods sold (COGS). However, the continual drive to zero doesn’t benefit the customer or supplier. While the price is a key factor, Dust differentiates itself based on the economic value of lower power and better reliability, each of which lowers the total cost of ownership (TCO). With reliability, there is the tangible cost of reduced sparing and time to repair and the intangible costs of downtime, which can be enormous depending on the service affected. Also, the firm is more of a strategic partner and not just a vendor of optical modules. “We can enable the next revolution of optical and semiconductor co-package and dramatically reduce power and TCO,” asserts Rubovitch.

The firm envisions expanding beyond 400G multimode fiber to 400G and 800G single mode fiber solutions as well as optical and silicon switch co-package integration by leveraging their silicon photonics and fiber alignment technologies. “The future is about bigger pipes and solving the problems they bring to optical connectivity. For Dust, this is our wheelhouse,” concludes Rubovitch.

DustPhotonics

DustPhotonics unveils first merchant single-chip 800G DR8 photonic integrated circuit

Friday, October 06, 2023

At the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC 2023) in Glasgow, Scotland, UK (2–4 October), DustPhotonics of Modi’in, Israel — which was founded in 2017 and develops silicon photonics technology and solutions — has announced what is claimed to be the industry’s first merchant single-chip 800G DR8 photonic integrated circuit (PIC). DustPhotonics has multiple live demos of this product highlighting its operation in several applications at booth #644.

The 800G PIC is a single-chip solution suitable for DR8 and DR8+ applications, providing eight optical channels independently modulated at 100Gb/s for an aggregate bandwidth of 800Gb/s. The chip is designed into a compact 7.5mm x 7mm package, enabling it to be used in industry-standard QSFP- and OSFP-style form factors. The device is suitable for reaches up to 2km in applications including hyperscale data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) clusters.

The PIC includes on-chip lasers, incorporating DustPhotonics’ patented L3C (low-loss laser coupling) technology, whereby off-the-shelf lasers from different manufacturers can be integrated with the PIC. This is said to allow advantages in product performance, cost, power and supply chain scalability.

DustPhotonics is demonstrating this device in multiple configurations including a traditional 800GBASE-DR8 application, an immersion cooling application, and a reduced-reach application. The immersion cooling demo showcases how this chip is suited to being immersed in a liquid coolant, since there is no free-space interface between the laser and PIC or at the fiber attach interface at the optical output of the chip. For the reduced-reach application, DustPhotonics is demonstrating a second, cost-optimized version of the product suitable for transceivers or active optical cables (AOCs) up to 100m, or for linear-drive pluggable optic (LPO) applications.

“We are seeing a lot of customer traction for this 800G application,” says CEO Ronnen Lovinger. “We are well-positioned for the next phase of the company, which is to scale into high-volume manufacturing,” he reckons.

“We have been encouraged by the growth of the 800Gb/s market, and we believe DustPhotonics single-chip PIC solution will help fuel adoption while easing some of the early supply chain constraints we are seeing in the industry,” comments Vladimir Kozlov, founder & CEO of optical communications market research firm LightCounting.

DustPhotonics Raises $24M in Series B Follow-on Round

Thursday, February 22, 2024

DustPhotonics, a Modi’in, Israel-based developer of silicon photonics technology for data center and AI applications, raised $24M in Series B follow-on funding.

The round was led by combination of new and existing investors such as Sienna Venture Capital, Greenfield Partners, Atreides Management, and Exor Ventures.

The company intends to use the funds to scale production of its Carmel-4 and Carmel-8 products, used for 400Gb/s and 800Gb/s applications, and to accelerate development of its products, which will enable 1.6Tb/s applications.

Led by CEO Ronnen Lovinger, DustPhotonics is a developer of silicon photonics technology for hyperscale data center and AI applications. Its technology platform is built to meet the requirements of the optical networking market, offering improvements in bandwidth and speeds while lowering costs and power consumption.

Commenting on the news, Ronnen Lovinger said: “We are grateful to have a strong group of investors who have been supporting us from the early days, and are delighted to have new partners join our journey ahead.”

Company
DustPhotonics

Management
Ben Rubovitch, CEO

Description
The firm designs and manufactures high-end optical transceivers for Datacenters, HPC and Cloud providers

DustPhotonics High Speed and Bigger Pipes-No Longer Problematic!