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An Introduction To CPO Technology

Time: 2023-12-13
1. What is CPO?
        CPO stands for Co-packaged Optics.
        It refers to the co-packaging scheme in which the switching chip and optical engine are assembled within the same integrated socket.
CPO Co-Packaging
Figure 1 CPO Co-Packaging
        In today’s conventional packaging, chips and optical modules are packaged separately and then interconnected externally, which belongs to traditional integrated circuit design.
        With the application of CPO technology, future systems can be regarded as integrated photonic circuits.
2. Evolution of Co-packaged Optics
        Optical packaging technology is evolving through three main stages:
        Pluggable as the basic stage, NPO as the transitional stage, and CPO as the ultimate form.
      • Pluggable: The traditional connection architecture.
        The optical engine takes the form of a pluggable optical module.
        Optical fibers connect to the module, and signals travel through SerDes channels to the network switching chip (ASIC).
      • NPO (Near-packaged Optics):
        The optical engine is removed from the pluggable module and mounted on the same PCB substrate as the switching chip.
      • CPO (Co-packaged Optics):
        The switching chip and optical engine are assembled together in the same package, realizing true chip-module co-integration.
Evolution of Co-packaged Optics
Figure 2 Evolution of Co-packaged Optics
3. Advantages of CPO Technology
      • Low latency & low power consumption
        Since the optical engine and switching chip are placed in the same package, the signal transmission path is greatly shortened, enabling lower latency.
        CPO also reduces signal transmission power and improves overall system energy efficiency.
      • High bandwidth
        CPO supports ultra-high-speed optical communication and provides much higher transmission bandwidth.
        Hyperscale and cloud data centers are expected to widely adopt 100G server ports in the coming years.
        Even higher-speed interfaces (such as 800G and 1.6T) are continuously being developed and deployed, further expanding the application of CPO.
      • Compact size
        Compared with the separate packaging of traditional optical modules and electronic chips, CPO achieves a much more compact form factor, which is highly suitable for high-density integration scenarios.

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