Rockley and partners demo 25.6Tbps switch, Ahren invests
Ahren Innovation Capital (Cambridge, England) has also been announced as an investor in Rockley Photonics, although the amount invested was not disclosed.
Rockley’s LightDriver optical engine is at the heart of the platform and it is based proprietary silicon photonics platform. The company states the approach delivers 40 percent savings in power and 60 percent savings in cost compared with transceiver-based optics. The LightDriver technology is scalable from 0.8Tbps to 3.2Tbps allowing Rockley to address system solutions from 25.6Tbps to 51.2Tbps using 100G PAM4 signaling.
“For co-packaged optics to become a reality it will take a strong and collaborative ecosystem. The partnership demonstrated by Rockley, Accton, Molex and TE we believe is a significant stepping stone towards delivering high performance and cost effective optics for hyper scale data center connectivity,” said Andrew Rickman, CEO of Rockley Photonics, in a statement.
Accton is a leading designer of open hardware platforms for data centers. The switch system incorporates Molex’s BiPass/TGA and Samtec’s Si-Fly copper solutions. Accton has integrated the MAC ASIC, optical engine, and copper connectors within a Kyocera substrate, which is connected by an XLA socket from TE Connectivity. Additionally, the demonstration switch platform introduces Vicor’s vertical power GCM device.
Ahren Innovation Capital was founded in 2017 by Alice Newcombe-Ellis and includes number of leading Cambridge and UK academics.
“By starting with a clean sheet and designing a bespoke fabrication process, Rockley has created a highly versatile platform solution. Importantly, the technology can be manufactured cheaply and at scale for high-volume market,” said Newcombe-Ellis.
Rockley closed a Series E round of funding in June 2019 raising $52 million and bringing the total raised to that point to more than $165 million.
Related articles and links:
www.ahreninnovationcapital.com
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