DesignCon: Nubis Communications and Alphawave Semi Showcase First Demo of Optical PCIe 6.0 Technology

Nubis Communications, Inc. and Alphawave Semi announced their upcoming demo of PCIe 6.0 technology driving over an optical link at 64GT/s per lane.

Data Center providers are exploring the use of PCIe over Optics to expand the reach and flexibility of the interconnect for memory, CPUs, GPUs, and custom silicon accelerators to enable more scalable and energy-efficient clusters for AI and ML architectures.

The 2 companies will be showing a live demonstration in the Tektronix booth at DesignCon, the conference for advanced chip, board, and system design technologies. An Alphawave Semi PCIe Subsystem with PiCORE Controller IP and PipeCORE PHY will directly drive and receive PCIe 6.0 traffic through a Nubis XT1600 linear optical engine to demonstrate a PCIe 6.0 optical link at 64GT/s per fiber, with optical output waveform measured on a Tektronix sampling scope with a high-speed optical probe.

Pipecore PHY block diagram

Optical transmission technology can be leveraged to extend link distances at the same bandwidths compared with copper cables, supporting the larger cluster sizes needed to support ever-larger AI/ML servers distributed over multiple nodes, and enabling innovation in new disaggregated network architectures. The Nubis XT1600 optical engine supports up to 16 lanes of high-density PCIe Gen 6.0 or 100Gb/s/lane Ethernet optical connectivity without incorporating retimers.

“Our high level of integration with 16 lanes full-duplex in a single low-power, low-latency optical engine is a great match to the maximum bandwidth of PCIe x16 for next-generation compute and storage deployments,” said Scott Schube, VP, marketing, Nubis. “Our demonstration of the Nubis XT1600 linear optical engine and Alphawave Semi’s PCIe 6.0 Controller and PHY IP showcases the viability of a PCIe 6.0 x8 link over optical fiber at 64 GT/s.”

“AI applications are reshaping data center networks, with hyperscalers deploying increasingly large clusters of disaggregated servers distributed over longer distances. This shift has generated heightened interest in PCIe over Optics among several of our customers,” said Tony Chan Carusone, CTO, Alphawave Semi. “Through our collaboration with Nubis, we’re pleased to demonstrate how we’re leveraging Alphawave Semi’s leadership in connectivity IP and silicon to enable PCIe optical connectivity solutions that accelerate high-performance AI computing and data infrastructure.”

The Nubis XT1600 linear optical engine is available for sampling.