THine Electronics, Inc. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6769), a fabless semiconductor supplier, develops the industry-first optical DSP (digital signal processor)-less chipset supporting PAM4 (pulse amplitude modulation 4-level) 64Gbps (giga-bit-per-second) for PCIe6.0.
The new optical chipset can be used in super high-speed active optical cables and on-board optics (OBS) modules. It removes DSPs from optical communication systems in data centers, thus saving power consumption by 60% and lowering latency by 90%. The chipset consists of VCSEL driver and trance impedance amplifier (TIA) for DSP-less active optical cable (AOC) solution with PCIe6.0 by THine’s state-of-art analog-based technology.
This industry-first optical PAM4 64Gbps chipset has achieved accurate signal recovery performance by evolving THine’s analog technology, removing DSPs from optical modules of data transmission and even from end-point ASICs. Compared with other types of optical communication, this DSP-less solution can drastically reduce power consumption as well as removing delay by DSPs from the systems.
“Wide penetration of generative AI derives tremendous increase of electrical power consumption in data centers and THine’s analog-based chipsets, removing optical DSPs from optical communication in data centers, can provide one of effective solutions by saving power by 60%,” said Yoichiro Minami, President and COO of THine Electronics, Inc. “With this solution data centers can also lower latency in optical communication by 90% that results in improving response time for AI processing. In addition, THine also plans to develop an advanced optical chipset for PCIe7.0 consequently.”
