Broadcom announces 51.2T optical co-sealing switch

Latest update time：2024-03-16

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Broadcom Co Packaged Optics Insertion Loss and Pluggable Devices

This is awesome. This week, Broadcom announced that its Bailly co-packaged optical switch is more than just an engineering prototype. Instead, the 51.2T Tomahawk 5 Bailly switch is now sampling to OEM/ODM.

Broadcom now offers samples of 51.2T co-packaged optical switches

Co-packaging optics has been a hot topic in the industry for some time. We've seen multiple iterations on how to do this, but now there seems to be a model that implements the solution, and the power savings are real. Four years ago, we published the first practices on Intel's co-packaged optical and silicon photonic switches. Since then, Broadcom has led the field, speeds have increased and practical implementation challenges have emerged.

At a quick glance, Broadcom breaks down the components used in a typical pluggable optics module and everything that supports the model.

Broadcom Co Packaged Optics Announcement 2024 03 Standard Devices with Pluggable Optics

By co-packaging the optics, the high-speed, power-hungry PHY eliminates the need to drive signals from the switch chip to the panel pluggable module cage. One area where it is used in the industry is in cabling between switches and pluggable modules. However, nearly everyone we spoke to believes that co-packaged optics are the future for the 1.6T era and beyond.

Why Broadcom chooses co-packaged optics 2024 03

The way optics have evolved is by simplifying them and then packaging them with the switching silicon.

Broadcom Co Packaging Optics Announcement 2024 03 Progress to Today

A year ago we reported on the 51.2T Bailly co-packaged optical switch shown based on Broadcom Tomahawk 5. Since then, it has gone from concept to reality.

Broadcom Tomahawk 5 Bailly 51.2T co-packaged optical CPO switch

The new Tomahawk 5 Bailly switch with co-packaged optics uses an optical module co-packaged with the Tomahawk 5 switch chip (shown here with the dust cover on it). From there, pigtails are used inside the chassis to help direct light to the front panel of the switch.

Broadcom Tomahawk 5 Bailly Co packaged optics sampling

Interestingly, Broadcom didn't show the internal cabling options that some vendors are using, but the company did have a slide about the sources of loss using traditional pluggable modules. Another important factor here is that the path between the ASIC and the optics on the substrate is much more efficient at driving high-speed electrical signals than the PCB. Once the signal is converted to fiber, the distance between the switch chip and the front panel is negligible compared to a typical 2 km FR4 fiber transmission distance.

Broadcom Co Packaged Optics Insertion Loss and Pluggable Devices

Another thing that's not present here is that the CPO's light source is a pluggable module. Light sources are devices with a high probability of failure, so they are plugged into the exterior of the switch. Below is a Facebook Minipack style switch with an LC connector on the front. Below is a pluggable slot for a pluggable light source.

Broadcom Co Packaged Optics Shipping

It's easy to imagine how liquid-cooled switches with MPO/MTP connections could create extremely high-density 1U switches.

at last

Hopefully we'll be able to produce more co-packaged optics in 2024-2025, as this technology could save a lot of the power currently wasted moving data a few centimeters in a switch. As we move into 800G and then into the 1.6T era, co-packaged optics will become even more important. Still, today Broadcom can claim that it is sampling its co-packaged optical solutions to customers.

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