'The most promising technology route in the AI ​​era', after CPO, LPO is coming again

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Based on CPO logic, the market has previously emerged from big bull stocks including Cambridge Technology, Zhongji InnoLight, and Liant Technology.

According to the latest research report of Guosheng Securities, it has unearthed a new light communication subdivision LPO. It believes that 800G LPO is the most promising technology route in the AI ​​era.

What is LPO?

According to the research report of Guosheng Securities, LPO (linear drive pluggable optical module) is mainly used in the field of high-speed optical modules. It replaces the traditional DSP with linear direct drive technology to achieve the advantages of reducing system power consumption and latency. However, the system bit error rate and transmission distance are sacrificed. This technology is suitable for short-distance transmission scenarios such as data centers.

LPO is the packaging form of optical modules. It is the technical route for the downward evolution of pluggable modules. It is mainly used to reduce power consumption. CPO is also the evolution route, but not under the pluggable optical module architecture. Move the optical module close to the switch chip and into the switch device.

It said that LPO technology has the following advantages:

1) Low power consumption. LPO power consumption is 50% lower than that of pluggable optical modules, and is close to CPO. As shown in the figure below, after adopting the Linear-drive solution, the power consumption of silicon photonics, VCSEL, and thin film lithium niobate is reduced by about 50%.

According to Macom data, the power consumption of 800G multi-mode optical modules with DSP functions can exceed 13W, while the power consumption of 800G multi-mode optical modules using MACOM PURE DRIVE technology is less than 4W, a 70% reduction. Low power consumption not only saves power, but also reduces the heat generated by components within the module.

2) Low latency. After removing the DSP chip, the system reduces the time for signal recovery and the delay is greatly reduced. The DSP/retiming function increases the delay. Taking MACOM PURE DRIVE technology as an example, the LPO optical module can achieve picosecond-level delay time due to the use of signal serialization scheme.

3) Low cost. DSP is more expensive. Among 400G optical modules, the BOM cost of DSP accounts for about 20-40%. LPO's driver and TIA integrate EQ functions, so the cost will be slightly higher than that of DSP. However, the LPO solution can still reduce the cost of optical modules a lot. .

4) Hot-swappable. Compared with CPO, LPO does not significantly change the packaging form of the optical module. It uses pluggable modules for easy maintenance and can make full use of existing mature technologies.

Guosheng Securities pointed out that semiconductor manufacturer Macom has released the LPO solution MACOM PURE DRIVE, which has the following advantages compared with the standard DSP architecture: 1) Reduces optical interconnection power consumption by more than 50%; 2) Minimizes link delay , crucial for machine learning and artificial intelligence applications; 3) Eliminates costly and redundant signal retiming modules; 4) Solve the problem of independent DSP chip heating; 5) Simplifies module implementation, with larger Flexibility; 6) Reduce floor space to meet space-constrained design requirements; 7) Expandable to 1.6T rate.

The explosion in demand for AI computing power drives the volume of 800G optical modules

Guosheng Securities pointed out that with the development of AI technology, large models, big data, and large computing power have increasingly become the core constraints for AIGC applications. Large models and data sets are the software foundation for AIGC development, and computing power is the most important infrastructure. AI is mainly based on parallel computing, and the core processor is mainly a GPU. However, in addition to GPU performance, communication factors will also become a shortcoming that restricts supercomputing. As long as there is network congestion on one link, data delays will occur.

Therefore, AI servers have very strict requirements for underlying data transmission rate and delay, and require high-speed optical module matching. Therefore, AI servers have great demand for 800G optical modules.

Take the NVIDIA DGX H100 server as an example. In the H100 NVLink Network IB architecture, one server corresponds to 5 4 4 5 external 4xNVLink channels, that is, 18 800G optical ports, 36 800G, that is, one H100 in this architecture Next, the part used for memory interconnection requires 4.5 800G optical modules.

Guosheng Securities stated that under the above background, LPO technology is the most potential solution in the 800G era. As DSP chips evolve from the 7nm process to the 5nm process, the design and manufacturing costs of DSP chips have also increased. The LPO solution removes the DSP chip in the optical module, which can significantly reduce power consumption and delay, and has cost advantages. Its shortcomings of system bit error rate and short transmission distance can also be solved in short-distance application scenarios of AI computing centers. make up. Therefore, the LPO solution can highly meet the needs of AI computing centers for short distance, large bandwidth, low power consumption, and low latency.

Ожидается, что массовое производство начнется к концу 2024 года

Guosheng Securities заявила, что LPO как новая технология, как ожидается, будет запущена в массовое производство к концу 2024 года. LightCounting также прогнозирует, что к концу 2024 года отрасль впервые внедрит оптические модули LPO.

В настоящее время XiNY Sheng, Cambridge Technology и т. д. выпустили сопутствующие продукты, Zhongji InnoLight имеет технические резервы и занимается разработкой продуктов, а Hisense Broadband выпустила линейный соединительный оптический кабель 800G. Микросхемы TIA и драйверы высокой линейности являются основными компонентами технологии LPO. В настоящее время существуют такие крупные поставщики, как Macom, Semtech и Maxim. Broadcom также содействует исследованиям и разработкам сопутствующих продуктов. Cambridge Technology в настоящее время тесно сотрудничает с Macom и поставляет Microsoft высокоскоростные оптические модули.

Guosheng Securities полагает, что североамериканские облачные вендоры активно расширяют вычислительные ресурсы, и в будущем Microsoft, Meta, AWS и Google могут постепенно принять решение LPO.

Он также отметил, что стоит отметить, что решение LPO должно взаимодействовать с коммутаторами, что требует более тесного сотрудничества между производителями оптических модулей в отрасли, а также сотрудничества между ведущими компаниями, такими как Zhongji InnoLight и XiNY Sheng. больше преимуществ. .

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