High-radix silicon photonic switches

for next-generation data centers

일시 : 2019년 10월 17일 (목) 오전 11시

장소 : 서울대 301동 신공학관 920호

Abstract:
The ever-increasing global IP traffic creates large demands for data center services for a variety of applications. The IP traffic in global data centers is expected to grow three times in the next five years, putting large pressure to increase the efficiency of the data center operations. Fast optical switches can significantly enhance the performance and the efficiency of the data centers by actively rearranging network patterns. However, optical switches sold on market are too slow (~10ms) and too expensive for the applications. Over the last decade, optical switches based on silicon photonics technology have realized fast (<1 μs) and low-cost solutions. However, most of the demonstrations were limited to low-radix (small number of ports) due to their interferometric architecture that cause high optical losses as radix increased.
In this talk, I will start by introducing a new architecture for silicon photonic switches that is highly scalable. The proposed architecture uses a waveguide crossbar with movable waveguide couplers that configure light paths with high flexibility. I will then show experimental demonstrations of high-radix silicon photonic switches using the new architecture. The switch architecture enabled ~10x reduction in loss/port and ~10x increase in radix. Moreover, the new switch architecture bears very unique and desirable characteristics such as polarization insensitivity, multi-cast capability, fast switching speed (~1 μs), and high extinction ratio (>50 dB) that are desirable for optical networks in next-generation data centers.

Biography:
Sangyoon Han received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Seoul National University in 2010, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley in 2016.
In 2016, he joined KAIST as a Postdoctoral Researcher to serve a military duty. He was a recipient of a graduate bronze medal from Collegiate Inventors Competition 2015 sponsored by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and a recipient of Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies Scholarship. He has authored and coauthored more than 30 papers in leading technical journals and conferences. His research interests include silicon photonics, non-linear optics, mid-IR photonics, heterogeneous integration, and LIDAR.

문의 : 전기정보공학부 이재상 교수님실 Tel. 02-880-9552