Modules

Intel® Ethernet SFP28 Optics are an excellent choice for high-speed communications equipment where extraordinary performance and reliability are essential. These hot-pluggable optical modules consume low-power and are offered in the extended temperature range.

When used with Intel® Ethernet Network Adapters with SFP28 connectivity, these optics provide more secure connections for virtualization, flexibility for LAN and SAN networking, and consistently reliable performance.

Fiber optics are more immune to harsh environmental factors. The light used for data transmission does not carry an electrical current so it cannot be impacted by electrical transmissions or radio frequency interference. Also, light has a superior signal strength that is near impervious to unwanted network taps.

Intel® Ethernet SFP28 Optics are an excellent choice for high-speed communications equipment where extraordinary performance and reliability are essential. These hot-pluggable optical modules consume low-power and are offered in the extended temperature range.

When used with Intel® Ethernet Network Adapters with SFP28 connectivity, these optics provide more secure connections for virtualization, flexibility for LAN and SAN networking, and consistently reliable performance.

Fiber optics are more immune to harsh environmental factors. The light used for data transmission does not carry an electrical current so it cannot be impacted by electrical transmissions or radio frequency interference. Also, light has a superior signal strength that is near impervious to unwanted network taps.

By adding photonics capability to world-leading silicon manufacturing, Intel® is developing a new class of high-speed optical connectivity products.

Intel® Silicon Photonics combines the manufacturing scale and capability of silicon with the power of light onto a single chip. We build silicon-based components that transmit and receive optical signals, moving vast amounts of information at 100 to 1600 Gigabits per second over long distances of up to several kilometers of fiber optic cables.

Today, our pluggable modules connect Ethernet switches in large data centers. As demand for bandwidth increases, silicon photonics co-packaged with switch ASICs will provide the band-width density necessary to scale future data center networks.

• New high-speed I/O connectivity based on photonics
• Intel® wafer-scale manufacturing with hybrid laser
• Platform for future high-density switch integration

What is Silicon Photonics?

Silicon Photonics is a combination of two of the most important inventions of the 20th century the silicon-integrated circuit and the semiconductor laser. With this combination, light has been integrated onto Intel's silicon platform, taking advantage of the bandwidth and reach of optical connectivity, using the scale and technology capability of silicon.

This new technology can reduce cost of ownership and improve the performance of future data center architectures by:

• Enabling high-bandwidth, software-configurable access to compute and storage
• Permitting software defined infrastructure (SDI) deployments to decouple hardware and software resources for disaggregated data centers
• Allowing optical connectivity that interoperates with other technologies, such as Ethernet switches,Smart-NICs, and FPGAs

The Intel® Silicon Photonics 100G CWDM4 (Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing 4-lane) QSFP28 Optical Transceiver is a small form-factor, high speed, and low power consumption product, targeted for use in optical interconnects for data communications applications. The high bandwidth module supports 100GbE optical links over single-mode fiber.

Applications

• Connectivity for large scale cloud and enterprise data centers
• Ethernet switch, router, and client-side telecom interfaces