Collaboration to develop a POC 12.8Tbps open networking switch

4th September 2020

Alex Lynn

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Delta has announced that it has worked with Microsoft and the Consortium for On Board Optics (COBO) on the successful development of a proof of concept (POC) open networking switch featuring 12.8Tbps bandwidth capacity as well as the integration of five different optical module form factors in a single 4U rack, including eight ports with the promising COBO standard — offering up to 800G transmission speed and up to 30% energy savings.

This innovative POC open networking switch underscores Delta’s capabilities regarding the research and development of next-generation data centre infrastructure with leading transmission speeds and energy efficiency for the nascent 5G era.

Brad Booth, Microsoft’s Principal Network Architect and COBO’s President, said: “We are pleased to see Delta’s expertise in high-efficiency power electronics and in networking systems. Being capable of integrating COBO and other form factors into a single platform has been an integral contribution to this POC project to enable end users to perform hands-on evaluation and testing.

“Cloud data centers will require the support of networking systems featuring increased transmission speeds and low carbon footprint, and COBO represents a prime opportunity to deliver on these essential requirements.”

Victor Cheng, Delta’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of its Information & Communications Technology Business Group, said: “With the development of this highly innovative POC COBO open networking switch, we have completed the first phase of a new chapter in the successful collaboration story with our long-time partner Microsoft.

“The promising energy savings offered by the COBO optical form factor standard align perfectly with Delta’s long-term commitment to energy conservation and lower CO2 emissions, and therefore, we look forward to cooperating with Microsoft and COBO to accelerate the growth of the 5G megatrend with this inventive technology.”

Delta is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Azure Cloud Solution Provider. This collaboration is a great achievement after Delta and Microsoft launched a 5G smart manufacturing solution in June. Delta continually cooperates with Microsoft for the interaction of technology.

Delta leveraged its expertise in telecommunications systems to develop the 12.8Tbps COBO POC open networking switch with five different optical module form factors into a compact 4U rack. These include sixteen ports with the new COBO standard, which boasts up to 800 Gbps transmission speed (16 x 50Gbps) and energy savings as high as 30% when compared to similar peer technologies.

The system also includes two 400G QSFP-DD, two 400G OSFP and sixty-four 100G QSFP ports. Intel’s 8-core 2.0GHz D-1548 Broadwell high-performance chip sits at the core of the Delta COBO switch.