Companies develop PCIe 5.0-compatible broadband optical SSD for next-gen data centres

Kioxia Corporation, AIO Core Co., Ltd. and Kyocera Corporation have developed a PCIe 5.0-compatible broadband SSD prototype with an optical interface (broadband optical SSD). The three companies will develop technologies for broadband optical SSDs to improve their suitability for advanced applications requiring high-speed transfer of large data, such as generative AI, and apply them to PoC tests for future social implementation.

The new prototype accomplished functional operation with the high-speed PCIe 5.0 interface, which is twice the bandwidth of the previous PCIe 4.0 generation, through the combination of AIO Core's IOCore optical transceiver and Kyocera's OPTINITY3 optoelectronic integration module technologies.

In next-generation green data centres, replacing the electrical wiring interface with optical and utilising broadband optical SSD technology greatly increases the physical distance between the compute and storage devices, while maintaining energy efficiency and high signal quality. It also contributes to the flexibility and efficiency of data centre system design, where digital diversification and the evolution of generative AI need complex, high-volume, high-speed data processing.

This achievement results from the Japanese' Next Generation Green Data Center Technology Development' project (JPNP21029). It is subsidised by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO), under the 'Green Innovation Fund Project: Construction of Next Generation Digital Infrastructure.' In this project, companies will develop next-generation technologies to achieve more than 40% energy savings compared to current data centres. As part of this project, Kioxia is developing broadband optical SSDs, AIO Core is developing optoelectronic fusion devices, and Kyocera is developing optoelectronic device packages.