Beyond 200G: What are the Brick Walls of 400G Links per Lane?
应用文章
Data rate demands beyond 200 Gb/s PAM4 per lane are emerging from new applications such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Artificial intelligence high performance computing clusters have significantly impacted the physical infrastructure requirements of data center facilities. As the demand for data processing and storage continues to surge, these data centers are grappling with the challenge of evolving and expanding exponentially to keep pace with growth. The changing landscape of platforms, equipment design, architecture topologies, power density requirements, and cooling demands all underscore the pressing need for new architectural designs. Physical layer performance of the network data center must be improved by meeting many design challenges included but not limited to minimizing insertion loss and eliminating reflections while controlling the impedance environment throughout all copper interconnects. Moving to 400 Gb/s per lane requires a progression of materials, interconnects, and manufacturing methods as well as new system topologies. This paper will explore these challenges and propose practical engineering solutions to fulfill the predicted 400 Gb/s per lane goals necessary for AI/ML large language learning models.