Marco Romagnoli took part in the OFC 2017 workshop entitled “Processors and Switches with Integrated Optical Engines – Researchers’ Dream or a Commercial Reality Soon?”
The workshop took place on 20 March 2017, in Los Angeles, USA.

Organizer:
Dominic Goodwill, Huawei Technologies Canada Co Ltd, Canada; Ken Morito, Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., Japan; Sam Palermo, Texas A&M University, USA; Thomas Schrans, Rockley Photonics, USA

Description:
On-board optics or optics-in-packaging – which integration strategy will happen on a large scale in data center and HPC systems? Or indeed will both types of integration co-exist? On-board optics is currently fashionable, but many researchers propose including photonics inside the chip package to increase data rates and decrease energy per bit. Large scale integration reduces cost for many technologies, but yield and other constraints may set practical limits. What are the challenges and benefits of these two approaches? Will cost-driven data center systems and performance-driven engineered systems have radically different solutions? This workshop covers views and expectations from systems builders, perspectives from photonic module suppliers, and assessments from technologists in packaging, high speed circuits and signal integrity, to explore the true benefits and costs.

Speakers:
Frank Flens, Finisar, USA
Ali Ghiasi, Ghiasi Quantum, USA
Ichiro Ogura, Photonics Electronics Technology Research Association, Japan
Marco Romagnoli, CNIT, Italy
Katharine Schmidtke, Facebook, USA
Marc Taubenblatt, IBM, USA