The Consortium for On-Board Optics (COBO) has launched a Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) Working Group. The group will develop technical guidance and standards for CPO implementations, including optical connectivity and remote laser sources.
"To support advancements in bandwidth requirements, COBO has advanced to co-packaged optics for enablement of robust fiber optic networks with higher, more reliable, and more efficient throughput," said Tiger Ninomiya, CPO Working Group chair and COBO board member. "Stakeholders involved in co-packaging applications are lending their expertise to advance the industry in a standardized way that meets all anticipated future requirements and to increase adoption with ease in this rapidly expanding market."
"It is critical that the industry develops standards and guidance to enable a robust co-packaging ecosystem," said Mark Filer, principal engineer, Azure hardware architecture at Microsoft. "COBO is the perfect forum to leverage its membership's expertise to address the optical connectivity challenges for the co-packaging of optics with ASICs."
COBO says its work in CPO will be complementary to other co-packaging standardization efforts. And there are already a few of these, including a collaboration between Facebook and Microsoft as well as the OIF, which announced first steps toward a CPO Implementation Agreement last month (see “Microsoft, Facebook form Co-Packaged Optics Collaboration” and “OIF targets Co-Packaging Framework Implementation Agreement"). Meanwhile, the CW-WDM MSA is working on developing laser grids that could apply to this application (see "CW-WDM MSA targets optical laser sources for greater than four channels").
"The widespread pairing of logic and memory with optical I/O will be an epochal moment in communications history," said Ian Redpath, practice leader, Components, Transport & Routing, at Omdia. "The co-packaged optics effort is progressing on multiple fronts: attracting heavyweight R&D investment with a multi-year horizon, building a multi-functional forum to address optical connectivity challenges and, delivering early stage proof-of-concept products."
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Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave
Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.
Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.
He has written numerous articles in all aspects of optical communications and fiber-optic networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), PON, optical components, DWDM, fiber cables, packet optical transport, optical transceivers, lasers, fiber optic testing, and more.
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