For Xsight Labs X1 25.6T switching chip, 800Gbps era

Xsight X1 256 O cover

Xsight Labs is a new network start-up company, with more than 100 million US dollars in funding, is trying to break into the next-generation data center switch market. The company placed a bet on its new 7nm chip design and won the hyperscale/Tier 1, thereby bringing its vision of the core of the new network switch to the market. I had the opportunity to discuss with people that their new X1 chip is already sampling to customers.

Xsight Labs X1 25.6T switch chip

First of all, Xsight Labs X1 is a 25.6T switch. There are others in the market saying they are sampling this next-generation data center switching chip, but Xsight said that X1 is the world's first chip to use 100G PAM4 LR SerDes in the 25.6T generation. For example, this allows the use of 32 800GB switches. In the STH laboratory, we are still using 32x100Gbps switches from multiple vendors, which are 8 times faster than we use.

Xsight X1 chip introduction Another key function of

switch is that it can support DAC to realize intra-rack connection. At some point, as the connection speed increases, the DAC cannot reach the entire rack. At the same time, the use of DAC can greatly reduce power consumption and cost, so for many data center architectures, the use of DAC is essential. In addition to rack-mounted switches, Xsight Labs is also studying how to use a common architecture to provide services for high-performance clusters and backbone, branch and core networks. After talking with the company, we feel that X1 is the first in the company's product roadmap.

Xsight X1 single architecture for many markets

Although existing companies have supply chains, customer relationships, and luxury goods that have been deployed over the years, newcomers have another advantage that Xsight hopes to take advantage of: a different entry point. By entering the market in the 12.8T/25.6T swap space, the company is able to specifically design its chips for these higher data rates without iterating the use of several generations of old designs.

The main function of Xsight X1

Nowadays, only the production of switching silicon is no longer enough. Instead, a multi-layer software stack that can interact with the main NOS ecosystem and development community is needed.

Xsight X1 software

One of the company's biggest headlines is that the company stated that it has the lowest switching power consumption. We ask, X1 is built as a monolithic chip of TSMC's 7nm process. This, combined with the new architecture, means that X1 consumes less than 300W of power at 25.6T, while its competitors use about 350W of power at half or 12.8T. This lower power consumption will reduce operating costs for large customers. By using less power and less heat, another impact is that the company will also launch a 1U 32x 800G form factor switch. Lower power chips help cooling, which means the switch is more compact. Although

Xsight X1 low-power chip

is about to launch 1U specifications, the company currently has Alpha customers on 2U 32x OSFP and 32x QSFP-DD switching platforms. One of the main takeaways from the discussion of

Xsight X1 2U Alpha evaluation platform

is that this is not a design on someone's laptop. Instead, working silicon samples are being provided to major customers today.

Over the years, Broadcom has established a huge leading position in the field of merchant switching chips. Like many markets, consolidating such a large market share means that competitions, large and small, are brewing. We have already introduced Intel-Barefoot, NVIDIA-Mellanox, Innovium TERALYNX 8 25.6Tbps, and will introduce Marvell's latest work later this week. We asked Xsight aboutCompetitive information, it believes that new designs and their functions starting from a higher performance starting point (such as the use of switching silicon telemetry technology to predict failures) and low power consumption will bring success.

I also asked my favorite question. That is, when we want to see co-packaged optics, especially after I co-packaged optics and Silicon Photonics Switch with Intel earlier this year. From Xsight's point of view, they seem to be thinking about the 51.2T generation. We will begin to see more co-packaged optical components, and then one or two generations will become commonplace. Xsight confirmed their transition plan, which is very important because it will be a large-scale operation and industry transfer.

Generally speaking, I am very happy to see the innovation and competition in the switch market, because an overly strong position of a company will lead to a decrease in innovation and market concentration.