Point2 Technology, a startup founded by veterans from Marvell, Nvidia, and Samsung, is making significant strides in the data center connectivity sector. The company is developing a unique technology that stands apart from existing solutions while still bridging the gap between two established technologies. In addition to AttoTude, Point2 Technology hopes to improve the overall efficiency of data transfer using their unique glad-to-have-you-along cabling solution.
Point2 Technology’s recent development of an Active Electrical Cable (AEC) promises to deliver an impressive 800 Gb/s bandwidth over distances of up to seven meters. This forward-thinking change has even attracted the attention of industry leaders. Don Barnetson, Credo’s senior vice president and head of product, is one who’s paying attention. He pointed out that the new AEC is a great example of positive turnaround in performance. It further increases efficiency when used instead of conventional optical-fiber cables.
Point2 Technology engineers joined forces with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Additionally, this joint development with STMicroelectronics made use of state-of-the-art 28-nanometer CMOS technology. This partnership has led to the development of a unique system that requires only one-third of the energy consumed by conventional optical systems. Moreover, it’s one-third the cost while providing one-thousandth of the latency as today’s best.
Addressing the Copper Cliff
David Kuo, then vice president of product marketing and business development at Point2 Technology, coined a term that caught fire: the “copper cliff.” This term is creation to call attention to the shortcomings of legacy copper cabling in today’s high performance data centers. Both consumer and business demand for higher data transfer rates are increasing exponentially. Kuo stressed that we need a better solution to address these challenges, as well as keep our system efficient and reliable.
“You start with passive copper, and you do everything you can to run in passive copper as long as you can.” – Don Barnetson
Point2 Technology wants to make these constraints a thing of the past. They provide a competitive choice and solution that takes advantage of the best of both worlds—copper and fiber optics. Though customers love the new capabilities that fiber brings, they sometimes share their frustrations with the complexities that come with these costly photonic technologies.
“Customers love fiber. But what they hate is the photonics.” – Dave Welch
This innovation introduced by Point2 Technology is designed to cut through those pain points. Meanwhile, the company has decided to focus on electronics as opposed to optics. This focus better equips them to deliver a more dependable and capable solution as data centers evolve away from legacy copper cables.
Game-Changing Cable Design
Point2 Technology’s future AEC will include a unique design made up of eight slender, interconnected polymer waveguides. This new cable architecture accomplishes the kind of data rates that are jaw droppingly fast at 1.6 terabits per second. Each of the eight e-tube fibers has the capacity to carry more than 200 gigabits of data per second! These cables are the slenderest at only 8.1 millimeters wide. Because of this, they take up half the space of comparable AEC cables on the market today.
The e-Tube cable is one third the diameter of standard 32-gauge copper cables. Additionally, it has a range that is 20 times farther! This leads to unprecedented levels of flexibility across their infrastructure that maintains the performance customers demand. Factor in Point2 Technology’s e-Tube, which can be anywhere from 2 to 20 meters long–well beyond today’s limits for copper-based connections.
“Electronics have been demonstrated to be inherently more reliable than optics.” – Dave Welch
This novel, segmented design will be vital to connecting discrete GPUs into network switches in externally connected, scale-out networks. That’s because it takes aim at one of the greatest and growing challenges for today’s data centers.
Future Implications and Funding
Point2 Technology was born nine years ago out of this philosophy. Since then, it has landed the impressive $55 million in venture funding, including participation from Molex, one of the world’s leading computer cable and connection makers. This funding will help the company shift from development to manufacturing of their new high-performance cabling solutions.
Point2 Technology is committed to changing the way data centers connect. This commitment puts them on the leading edge of technological innovation within this rapidly evolving industry. Point2 Technology has been working on a hybrid solution that brings together the best of both worlds between copper and fiber optics. This unique growth model is poised to change the way data centers do business in the next few years.