Affiliation:
1. The Chinese University of Hong Kong
2. University of Southampton
Abstract
Fast (nanoseconds) optical wavelength switching is emerging as a viable solution to scaling the size and capacity of intra-data center interconnection. A key enabling technology for such systems is low-jitter optical clock synchronization, which enables sub-nanosecond clock and data recovery for optically switched frames using low-cost methods such as clock phase caching. We propose and demonstrate real-time low-latency wavelength-switched clock-synchronized intra-data center interconnection at 51.2 GBd using a fast tunable laser (with ns scale switching time) and ultra-stable-latency hollow core fiber (HCF) for optically-switched data center networks. For wavelength-switched systems, we achieve a physical layer latency below 46 ns, consisting of 28 ns transceiver latency and a 18 ns inter-packet gap. Finally, we show that by exploiting the low chromatic dispersion and thermally-stable latency features of HCF, active clock phase tracking can be entirely eliminated.
Funder
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Subject
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics