Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. announced customer sample availability of 400G optical modules based on silicon-photonics technology. The modules are designed to demonstrate the feasibility of applying AOI’s silicon photonics platform to the requirements of on-board optics (OBO), as outlined in specifications such as the recently-released version 1.1 of the onboard optical module specification published by the Consortium for Onboard Optics (COBO), of which AOI is an active member. In contrast to traditional pluggable optical modules, OBO modules are designed to be used in higher-speed data switches, with interface speeds ranging from 400 Gbps to 1.6 Tbps. By designing the optical modules to be mated directly to a circuit board within such a switch, the OBO modules enable an increase in the density of optical interfaces to the switch, which in turn enables greater data throughput through the switch fabric, while also simplifying cooling and electrical interfaces, two areas where traditional pluggable modules have increasing difficulty as interface speeds increase. AOI’s sample OBO modules are specifically designed for customers developing next-generation switches for large datacenters, as these switches gradually evolve from 100 Gbps interconnects to 400 Gpbs, and higher. The modules currently leverage new silicon-based optical technology to support 16 optical channels with a total data throughput of 400 Gbps. Future versions of the device are expected to leverage the same silicon-photonics technology, but increase the bandwidth up to 100 Gbps per optical channel, ultimately enabling 1.6 Tbps of data throughput over a single OBO module. In turn, this would enable next-generation 12.8 Tbps switches to utilize only 8 optical modules, significantly improving density and reducing power consumption compared to a similar solution, which would require 32 400-Gbps pluggable modules.