Avago Unveils Advanced Embedded Optical Engine Technology for High-Speed Interconnect

The first application to use Avago’s embedded optical engine technology is Intel’s Light Peak, which is a new optical fiber cable technology announced last week at the annual Intel Developers Forum. Light Peak is a new high-speed optical interconnect technology designed to run multiple existing I/O protocols on a single cable to connect electronic devices together. It delivers high bandwidth starting at 10 Gigabits per second (Gb/s) with the potential ability to scale to 100 Gb/s over the next decade. At 10Gb/s, a full-length Blu-Ray movie can be transferred in less than 30 seconds.

“Intel is pleased to be working with Avago Technologies to make Light Peak optical components ready to ship in 2010,” said Jason Ziller, director, Optical I/O Program Office, Intel Corp. “Light Peak has high bandwidth and the ability to run multiple I/O protocols over a single cable, enabling the technology to connect to many devices such as displays, disk drives, peripherals, and docking stations.”

“With an extra thin profile of 2mm and power consumption of 135 mW per 10G channel, this Avago embedded optical engine will fit in small confined spaces, which is an essential requirement for electronic computing and consumer electronic devices,” said Philip Gadd, vice president and general manager, Fiber Optic Products Division, Avago Technologies.