Silicon circuits for chip‐to‐chip communications in multi‐socket server board interconnects

Multi-socket server boards (MSBs) exploit the interconnection of multiple processor chips towards forming powerful cache coherent systems, with interconnect technology comprising a key element in boosting processing performance. Here, we present an overview current electrical interconnects for MSBs, outlining main challenges currently faced. We propose use silicon photonics (SiPho) advancing throughput, socket connectivity and energy efficiency MSB layouts, enabling flat-topology wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)-based point-to-point (p2p) optical scheme. demonstrate WDM SiPho transceivers (TxRxs) co-assembled their electronic circuits up to 50 Gb/s line rate 400 aggregate data transmission arrayed waveguide grating routers that can offer collision-less time flight 16 nodes. The capacity scale 2.8 eight-socket MSB, when scales Gb/s, yielding 69% reduction compared QuickPath Interconnect highlighting feasibility single-hop p2p systems >4 sockets.