OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS LIGHT FIDELITY


LiFi now smartphone-ready


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ight fidelity (LiFi) modules have been launched that will enable LiFi to be used


with connected devices and smartphones at scale. Edinburgh-based pureLiFi launched a ‘Light Antenna Module’ at Mobile World Congress 2023, optimised for the performance, size, cost and production requirements of the connected device and smartphone market, enabling manufacturers to integrate LiFi at scale.


The module will be compliant


with the IEEE 802.11bb Light Communication standard. This means that LiFi will easily integrate with existing 802.11 WiFi networking equipment and also with 802.11 WiFi chipsets shipping in billions of devices each year. LiFi is a wireless technology that uses light rather than


radio frequencies (RF) to transmit data, enabling faster, more reliable, congestion-free wireless communications with unparalleled military- grade security – compared to conventional technologies such as WiFi and 5G. The technology is designed to


address the growing congestion and interference of traditional wireless technologies, and could help ‘free up’ both WiFi and 5G, enabling them to perform better. McKinsey Global Institute


estimates that only 70% of the global demand for digital connections leading up to 2030 will be satisfied by existing radio frequency RF and related technologies, even with advances such as 5G and WiFi 6. Kyocera is another developer


of LiFi systems. At CES 2023, it displayed a laser LiFi commercial development kit,


pureLiFi’s Light Antenna Module


called DataLight, which features a high-speed 1 gigabit per second (1Gb/s), secure, RF-free, eye-safe bidirectional link. The system can achieve data rate of more than 90Gb/s, a data rate 100 times faster than 5G. The company is now


commercialising LiFi solutions for applications in automotive, and undersea, as well as RF- sensitive environments such as aeroplane cabins, smart factories, healthcare, secure government facilities, and smart cities. l


FRONTIERS PHOTONICS


CHIP-TO-CHIP COMMUNICATION


MicroLED architecture to overcome existing bottlenecks


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t OFC 2023, California- based Avicena Tech announced it had


partnered with ams Osram to develop high-volume manufacturing of GaN microLED arrays for its LightBundle communication platform.


The communication


architecture could remove key constraints of bandwidth and proximity while offering high energy efficiency, high bandwidth density, and low latency. Interconnects are becoming


the key bottleneck in computer and network systems. Highly variable workloads are driving the evolution of densely interconnected, heterogeneous, software-defined clusters of CPUs, graphical processing units (GPUs), data processing


units and shared memory blocks. Exploding artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads are driving an accelerating need for interconnects with extremely high density, low power consumption and low latency. Based on arrays of GaN LED micro-emitters that can be integrated onto CMOS integrated circuits, the architecture can meet the performance of xPUs, memory, and sensors – removing key constraints of bandwidth and proximity while offering an order-of-magnitude reduction in power consumption. The partnership will


leverage emerging microLED manufacturing ecosystems, in which ams Osram is a major player. Avicena’s LightBundle


technology provides an opportunity for GaN microLEDs to impact a range of applications, including HPC, AI/ML, sensors, automotive, and aerospace. Hyperscale datacenter operators and the integrated circuit firms are expected to be Avicena’s customers for this technology. The LightBundle links use densely packed arrays of GaN microLEDs to create parallel optical interconnects with typical throughputs of >1Tb/s at energies of <1pJ/ bit. A cable uses a multicore multimode fibre to connect a GaN microLED transmitter array to a matching array of silicon photodetectors. Arrays of hundreds or thousands of LightBundle’s microLEDs and photodetectors are easily integrated with standard CMOS


Avicena LightBundle MicroLED arrays


integrated circuits, enabling the closest integration of optical interconnects with electrical circuits.


In addition to high energy efficiency and high bandwidth density, these LightBundle links also exhibit low latency since the modulation format of the individual links is simple NRZ instead of PAM4, which is common in many modern optical links but has the disadvantage of higher power consumption and additional latency. l


Photonics Frontiers 2023 23


Business Wire


pureLiFi


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