Google Apollo and the Rise of OCS
The E/O Conversion Wall.
Today's AI clusters spend a massive amount of power converting data between electrons (inside the switch ASIC) and photons (inside the optical fiber). Each conversion (E/O and O/E) adds latency and requires significant electrical power for SerDes and DSPs.
**All-Optical Circuit Switching (OCS)** eliminates this. Photons that enter the switch are physically reflected by Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) mirrors, exiting another port without ever touching an electronic circuit.
30% Power Reduction
By removing DSPs from transceivers (LPO) and avoiding electronic switching, OCS networks consume drastically less power than traditional Ethernet core.
Zero Hop Latency
Photons simply reflect off a mirror. There are no buffers, no queuing delays, and no lookup tables. The speed of light is your only limit.
Traditional Switch vs. All-Optical Switch
Traditional EPS
- High E/O Power Drain
- Packet Buffering & Queuing
- Fixed Fat-Tree Topology
All-Optical OCS
- Passive Mirror Reflection
- Zero Buffering Latency
- Dynamic Topology Reconfig