NVIDIA Rubin series is about to be introduced into the silicon photon process, and the industry is highly concerned. The "Silicon Photonic Design to Quantity: CPO and Different Quality Integration Technology Forum" hosted by Enlai Technology was held today, focusing on the latest developments of Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) in the AI data center, and invited experts from the industry to share the latest observations and market trends.
With the continuous expansion of AI models, traditional copper interconnection has been unable to support the large computing needs of data centers, and optical interconnection is accelerating to become the mainstream. Hong Yuheng, chairman of the Semiconductor Research Institute of Zhongdai Research Institute, and Chen Shengyou, co-founder and technical director of the Light Semiconductor, both believe that in the future, the market will form two extreme patterns of LPO (Linear Drive Pluggable Optics) and CPO, and the industry is at the key turnaround.
LPO is stable in the short term, CPO rises in the long termHong Yuheng said that the demand for data width for AI training and reasoning continues to rise, and data centers are now spending more than 70% of their time waiting for data transportation. Once the rate exceeds 200G, the copper wire transmission of the consumption, power consumption and module volume become system bottles, forcing the optical function to be closer to the computing chip. The CPO architecture can effectively shorten the distance of the signal and reduce energy consumption by tightly sealing the optical engine and ASIC, and is regarded as the core foundation of the next-generation AI data center.
Chen Shengyou pointed out that the development of LPO and CPO will show a dual role in "short-term LPO mainstream and long-term CPO rise". In the short and medium term, LPO is still the main deployment option with mature supply chains, compatibility and maintenance convenience; however, with the increasing demand for energy efficiency, density and system integration, CPO will gradually enter the exchanger and accelerator scene, becoming an inevitable choice for high-level AI platforms. According to LightCounting's data, by 2030, the combined market between LPO and CPO will account for more than 30%. In the short term, LPO shipments will be large, but in the long term, the proportion of CPO will gradually increase.
In addition, the operator pointed out that in the deployment of AI cabinets, current stage LPO and copper lines still mainly assume the role of Scale-up, and Scale up presents multiple lines, including LPO, copper lines, optical I/O, and the new Micro LED and other technologies, competing with each other. As for Scale-out deployment, it is widely believed that it will eventually develop towards CPOs. Although it is still facing challenges of heat dissipation, reliability and standardization, in the long run, CPOs are still regarded as the ultimate solution for energy efficiency and density optimization.
NVIDIA closed the ecological environment to Broadcom open the platformThe strategic differences between NVIDIA and Broadcom are particularly obvious in terms of competition landscape. NVIDIA constructs a closed-type ecological environment, combines CUDA software and Rubin platform, and invests heavily in MRM (Micro-Ring Modulator), relying on advanced telco processing to control process tolerances; Broadcom continues to extend the MZI technology route (Mach-Zehnder Interferometer), adopting a model of opening the platform and broad cooperation, with relatively mature technology but high power consumption. MZI is a traditional optical regulator with a mature structure, stable but large body size and high power consumption; MRM reduces power consumption and reduces size through a circular resonance structure, but is extremely sensitive to process tolerances. The "closed vs. Open" and "MRM vs. MZI" are deeply affecting the future standard setting and market promotion speed.
Authors pointed out that CPOs are regarded as the ultimate solution and are still not popular. The challenge mainly comes from three aspects: one is heat management, and the high integration of optical power leads to increased heat dissipation pressure; the second is reliability and maintenance. Once the optical engine fails, the exchanger may be shut down; the third is insufficient testing and standardization, and the current stage lacks a unified pre-packaging/after-packaging and system-level testing specifications, making yield and cost difficult to estimate. Against this background, LPO will still bear most of the market demand in the 800G or even 1.6T generation, and if CPO truly moves to large-scale production, it still has to overcome the multiple challenges of design, packaging, testing and supply chain cooperation.