Huawei pitches near-packaged optics as co-packaged costs bite

Huawei wants near-packaged optics (NPO) standardized for AI networks, pitching it as a replacement for conventional pluggable modules without the cost and maintenance headaches it attributes to co-packaged optics.

The Chinese tech giant showcased an NPO module with a capacity of 7.2 terabits per second (Tbps) at the China International Optoelectronic Exposition (CIOE) held in Shenzhen over September 9-11, and said this will form part of the company's next-gen SuperPOD AI systems.

NPO refers to the placement of the optical engine in a network switch as close as possible to the switch's application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), but still as a separate package plugged into the mainboard.

This is one potential option to supersede the pluggable modules now widely used to terminate optical fiber links to a switch.

Pluggable modules typically contain a digital signal processor (DSP) to clean up the incoming signal, and their power consumption and heat output increase with network speed.

With AI infrastructure pushing network connections to 800 Gbps and even 1.6 Tbps, this is becoming a problem.

Another upgrade path for switches is co-packaged optics (CPO), where the optical engine sits even closer – on the same substrate as the switch ASIC silicon.

This is expected to deliver low latency and power consumption, but Huawei says the advanced packaging is expensive and makes failed optical engines difficult to replace in the datacenter.

This is why Huawei says it is pushing NPO as the pragmatic choice for the near future.

"When it comes to optical interconnects, there are two technical choices.

One is NPO, near package optics.

The other is CPO, co-packaged optics.

Compared with CPO, the NPO technology is more mature, making it easier for production ramp up and it's easier for maintenance.

So NPO stands as the most mature technology at the moment, and it is also a practical choice in this day and age," said Dr Man Jiangwei, director of Huawei's Advanced Opto-Electronics Laboratory.