Marvell Technology, Inc., a leader in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, introduced COLORZ 800, the industry’s first family of 800 Gbps ZR/ZR+ pluggable modules for scaling data center interconnects (DCIs) rapidly, economically, and efficiently in the AI era.
COLORZ 800 incorporates Marvell’s new Orion 800 Gbps coherent DSP and innovative, field-proven silicon photonics platform, which integrates multiple discrete components into a single die, providing up to 800 Gbps of bandwidth for DCI links up to 500km. COLORZ 800 can also be enabled for connections up to 1,200km operating at 400/600 Gbps to replace traditional transport equipment across a greater range of cloud infrastructure.
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COLORZ 800 lowers the capital cost of DCI by up to 75% compared to traditional rack-based DCI boxes with embedded DSPs1 while cutting operating expenses such as power, rack space and real estate. Additionally, COLORZ 800 doubles the speed while lowering cost per bit and power per bit by up to 30% compared to existing solutions2.
Expanding Opportunities for ZR/ZR+ Deployment
ZR/ZR+ pluggable modules are high-performance, high-capacity optical interfaces for connecting data centers and other infrastructures over optical networks and have been instrumental in providing the bandwidth and performance to enable organizations to shift more of their workloads to the cloud. With AI, the role of DCI will grow in importance to accommodate the expected surge in traffic that will occur between centralized data centers dedicated to AI training and regional data centers focused on AI inference to support new services and users.
Based on open standards managed by the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and OpenZR+, ZR/ZR+ modules also enable cloud service providers to add capacity quickly because the compact devices can be directly plugged into existing switches and routers without additional dedicated equipment. In 2023, unit shipments of coherent pluggable modules are expected to surpass traditional DCI boxes for the first time3.
“With data center bandwidth doubling every few years, pluggable modules represent the technology of choice for cloud and service providers to scale quickly and effectively,” said Scott Wilkinson, Lead Analyst for Optical Components at Cignal AI. “Our conservative forecast calls for nearly 300,000 shipments of 800 Gbps-capable pluggable modules a year by 2027.”
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Advancing Networks for the AI Era
COLORZ 800 and Orion are the latest additions to Marvell’s comprehensive portfolio of silicon solutions developed for advancing data infrastructure. Over the next several years, a number of cloud service operators and other service providers are expected to upgrade their core switches and routers from 12.8T to 51.2T and accompany that upgrade with 800 Gbps coherent DCI links, 1.6T PAM4 optical modules for connections inside data centers (3m to ~2km) and DSP-based active electrical cables (AEC) for communications between equipment in the same rack (3m and below).
In March, Marvell announced Teralynx® 10, a 51.2T switch chip for powering cloud switch systems, as well as Nova™, an industry-first 1.6T PAM4 DSP capable of transmitting 200G per wavelength of light to double the capacity of PAM4 modules. In 2022, Marvell also released the 400 Gbps and 800 Gbps Alaska® A DSPs for AEC. Additionally, Marvell produces drivers and amplifiers included in optical modules.
“The new level of performance delivered by COLORZ 800 greatly expands the use cases and opportunities for coherent pluggable modules,” said Josef Berger, Associate Vice President of Marketing, Optical Group at Marvell. “The new modules further extend our strategy of helping cloud providers develop infrastructure that can keep up with the pace of AI and other workloads.”
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