Pluggable Optic Housing with Tunable Wavelength Selective Circuit
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current optical networks face challenges in data center and cloud computing applications, including high cabling complexity, latency, cost, and power consumption, particularly in wavelength division multiplexed networks, which struggle to scale efficiently and maintain low latency while reducing infrastructure costs.
Innovation Solution
The development of a pluggable optic housing with a tunable optical wavelength selective circuit using microoptoelectromechanical systems (MOEMS) and reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) that enable flexible wavelength selection and reduced cabling complexity, allowing for efficient data transmission and scalability within data centers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional optical networks are used in data centers, then data transmission can be established, but cabling complexity increases and scalability is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The optical network is segmented into multiple ROADMs (Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexers) that can be independently configured and managed. Each ROADM handles specific wavelength channels, allowing the network to be divided into manageable segments that can be scaled independently, reducing overall cabling complexity while improving scalability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamically reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers that can change their configuration in real-time based on network demands. This dynamic capability allows the network to adapt to varying traffic patterns and scale flexibly without requiring permanent physical cabling changes, thereby reducing cabling complexity while enhancing scalability.
2Productivity
If more optical components are added to increase bandwidth capacity, then data transmission capacity improves, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements partial wavelength switching where only the necessary number of wavelength channels are activated based on current bandwidth demands. Instead of keeping all optical components active continuously, the system activates only the required portion, thereby maintaining high bandwidth capacity when needed while reducing power consumption during lower demand periods.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically changes operational parameters of optical components, such as adjusting the number of active wavelength channels, modulation formats, and transmission rates based on network conditions. This allows the network to optimize the balance between bandwidth capacity and power consumption by adapting parameters rather than simply adding or removing hardware components.
3Speed
If traditional optical networks are used, then data transmission is possible, but latency is high
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary wavelength assignment and pre-establishment of optical paths through the ROADMs. By pre-configuring wavelength routes and maintaining ready-state optical connections, the system eliminates the need for time-consuming path establishment during actual data transmission, thereby reducing latency while maintaining high transmission speeds.
Solution Approach 2:
The system maintains continuous optical connections through the ROADMs rather than establishing and breaking connections for each data transfer. The optical paths remain active and ready for data transmission, ensuring continuous useful action is performed on the optical signals, which minimizes latency while preserving high data transmission speeds.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution reduces cabling complexity, lowers latency, and decreases power consumption while enabling scalable and cost-effective interconnections between data centers, supporting increased bandwidth demands and flexible network configurations.
Implementation Method 1
a tunable optical wavelength selective circuit comprising a plurality of wavelength selective filters and a rotatable microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) for selecting a wavelength selective filter of the plurality of wavelength selective filters to tune the tunable optical wavelength selective circuit
Data Source
AI summary
Data center interconnections, which encompass WSCs as well as traditional data centers, have become both a bottleneck and a cost/power issue for cloud computing providers, cloud service providers and the users of the cloud generally. Fiber optic technologies already play critical roles in data center operations and will increasingly in the future. The goal is to move data as fast as possible with the lowest latency with the lowest cost and the smallest space consumption on the server blade and throughout the network. Accordingly, it would be beneficial for new fiber optic interconnection architectures to address the traditional hierarchal time-division multiplexed (TDM) routing and interconnection and provide reduced latency, increased flexibility, lower cost, lower power consumption, and provide interconnections exploiting N×M×D Gbps photonic interconnects wherein N channels are provided each carrying M wavelength division signals at D Gbps.