Standards Development

Scope

This part of IEC 62150 specifies a generic vertical mezzanine board system to support test and measurement of devices based on micro-optical and micro-photonic technologies, including but not limited to photonic integrated circuit (PIC) devices.

Purpose

Specific aims and reasons for this standardization activity:

If approved, the proposed standard defines a generic vertical electro -optical mezzanine test board, to allow test and characterisation of diverse electronic, micro -optical and micro-photonic devices mounted thereon. The board is vertically pluggable to a host board with both electrical and optical vertically pluggable interfaces.

The reason for this standard is to allow both test and characterisation of the individual devices under test (DUTs) housed on a single mezzanine card, and to enable reconfigurable interconnectivity between groups of vertical mezzanine cards and their respective DUTs to construct different aggregate functionalities and to enable test and characterisation of the aggregate DUTs within larger test environments, relevant to their targeted application, such as data centre systems, high performance computers, auto motive or 5G cabinets.

Main interests:

There is particular interest from hyperscalers to test a variety of PICs in different controlled combinations and configurations to evaluate suitability for new hyperscale and AI network architectures.

Feasibility of the activity:

The technology defined by this standard has already been demonstrated in Europe, including as part of the Horizon Europe DYNAMOS and ADOPTION projects and the UK InnovateUK EQUINOX project.

Timeliness of the standard:

The standard is very timely as it supports a means of aggregating and testing micro -photonic devices, in particular photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for a variety of applications. PIC technology is proliferating in various sectors, for instance most data centre transceivers are now based on silicon PIC transceivers and emerging data centre and AI networks will require PICs for programmable switching and wavelength routing.

Urgency of the activity:

This standard is urgently required because of the very rapid adoption and proliferation of PIC technology especially for AI applications.

Benefits

This approach will be instrumental in accelerating commercial adoption of micro -photonic devices as they will provide a common benchmark, against which to evaluate the true performance of a DUT or an aggregate DUT, comprising multiple individual DUTs on separate vertical mezzanine cards optically connected together in different configurations.