Role of Silicon Photonics for 5G & Mobile Networking - Intel® Chip Chat episode 577

Alexis Bjorlin, VP Data Center Group and GM Intel Connectivity Group, joins Chip Chat live from MWC. Alexis is responsible for the businesses that deliver differentiated end-to-end data center networking connectivity solutions, including Intel® Ethernet Networking Division, Intel® Omni-Path High Performance Fabric Division, and Intel® Silicon Photonics Division.

Silicon photonics have been shipping in volume for cloud data centers and have played an important role in mobile networking since the beginning of 4G, LTE. As native data rates increase from 10Gb/sec to 25Gb/sec, the technology will be even more critical to support high-speed, optical connectivity to/from cell tower. Silicon photonics increase speed from 10Gb/s to 100Gb/s data back and forward. Future silicon photonics will scale to 400G and higher, support switches up to 12.8TB, past 400G.

Intel and its ecosystem are helping communications service providers transform networks to establish 5G infrastructure. Network equipment providers and carriers see optics as an increasingly important element for reliability, bandwidth and throughput. Intel’s excellence in high-volume manufacturing is important to deliver high-quality photonics to support key 5G trials and to be ready for full, commercial production when 5G hits volume.