New optical chip from XLoom

XLoom Communications introduced its iFlame optical chip this week

Flame, the industry’s first chip-scale 4-channel optical transceiver, is aimed at data center applications running over InfiniBand, Ethernet and Fiber-Channel. The iFlame chip, implemented as an optical engine, enables high-speed, high-density, cost-effective interconnect applications such as Opto-electrical media converters, optical active connectors and cables as well as traditional transceivers such as the upcoming QSFP form factor.

The iFlame, which is less than 1 square/CM in size, features an array of four state-of-the-art 850 nm VCSELs (Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers) and four photo-diodes for data rates of 1.25Gbps to 5Gbps per channel, for a total aggregate of up to 20Gbps.