BackChip Companies See the Light
The soaring computing demands of artificial intelligence are forcing chip makers to re-evaluate everything, from chip architecture to chip size to eke out better performance.
PremiumThe soaring computing demands of artificial intelligence are forcing chip makers to re-evaluate everything, from chip architecture to chip size to eke out better performance.
Now researchers at Intel and other companies are focusing on revamping one of the most basic of computing components, the tiny connections that help individual chips communicate with each other. Copper wiring has facilitated these interconnects. Now companies are looking to leverage optical fiber.
This method, which involves transferring data through photons, promises to be more energy efficient and offer better computing scale than the traditional method of transferring via electrons in copper wire.
“These next gen AI problems with larger and larger models—now you need more and more compute to be involved in solving that problem," said Amit Nagra, vice president and general manager of the Intel Silicon Photonics product division. “This is bringing optics closer to the compute engine. We are investing greatly and actively."
Optical fiber has already replaced copper wire on a larger scale, including the thousands-mile-long subsea communications cables connecting the continents.
More recently, optical fiber has replaced copper as a way to connect individual racks of servers in datacenters. It has been slower to arrive at the individual computing chips level, in part because copper, while poor at transferring data across long distances, has held up so far for smaller distances.
Now that could be changing.
“Generative AI has thrown gas on the fire that is bringing this technology to the forefront at the right point in time," said Charlie Wuischpard, chief executive of Ayar Labs, which is developing technology that converts electrical signals into optical ones.
When electrons move through metal they generate a lot of heat which can then degrade the signal, Wuischpard said. There are components designed to boost the signal, but they add to the power consumption, he said. Photons are capable of maintaining energy over longer distances without signal degradation.
“This is a matter of physics where photons are just way more efficient moving data than electrons are," Wuischpard said.
Santa-Clara based Ayar Labs is working to develop a small chiplet that would sit next to a chip and convert its electrical signal into an optical one, Wuischpard said. It is also working with tech supplier Sivers Semiconductors, which is providing the lasers that power this optical signal, he said.
This year Ayar Labs has shipped thousands of product samples to customers like Intel. These are now being used to figure out how optical connections integrate with the rest of the computing architecture, Wuischpard said.
Intel is testing products from Ayar Labs as well as working to develop its own solutions, the company said.
Wuischpard said the goal is for the optical-enabled chips to be able to transmit data at a five times higher data rate with 10 times less latency, and eight times more power efficiency than the current setup.
Nevertheless, some challenges remain. Reliability and manufacturability are both ongoing barriers, said Wuischpard. Lasers suffer in extreme temperatures and since data centers can be extremely hot, the placement of the lasers is key, he said. Wuischpard also said the company has been working with Global Foundries in upstate New York to get the manufacturing process refined.
Wuischpard said he expects Ayar Labs’ solution to be in actual use in the 2025 to 2026 time frame.
Boston-based Lightmatter is also working on technology to convert chip electrical signals into optical signals. The company said it expects this solution, known as Passage, to be deployed in some instances next year.
Andrew Wheeler, HPE Fellow and director of Hewlett Packard Labs at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, said the technology feels like it is closer than ever to delivering on its promise, although costs and the time needed to build a business ecosystem around it are barriers.
“We’ve got decades of experience [in] how to work with electrical signaling. When something fails in the field, we know how to repair it," Wheeler said, adding that with optical chip connections, “that’s a big learning curve still."
HPE is working to create a development kit that designers will be able to use to create these new kinds of chips.
The Industrial Advisory Committee at the National Institute of Standards and Technology earlier this year listed this research into chip photonics as a key emerging technology that should merit Chips Act investments in R&D, prototyping, and manufacturing. The Chips Act, signed into law by President Biden in 2022, is intended to ensure U.S. dominance in a crucial industry and cushion the country from the shocks that have roiled global supply chains.
“[It] has been one of those promising technologies that’s felt like it is always been 10 years away. It does now feel like we finally crossed some of these major thresholds to the point of: we’re going to start to see it here within one to two years," Wheeler said.
Write to Isabelle Bousquette at isabelle.bousquette@wsj.com
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