Kioxia (formerly Toshiba), a leading manufacturer of solid-state drives (SSDs), has announced drives with an optical interface designed for next-generation green data centers. The technology replaces traditional electrical signals and copper wires with laser and optical cables, which allows storage devices to be placed at a distance of up to 40 meters from servers.

The advantage of optical technology is to optimize the energy consumption of data centers due to the increased distance between computing systems that generate a lot of heat and storage that requires minimal cooling. The use of smaller connectors and resistance to electromagnetic interference also contribute to compactness and reduced cable shielding costs.

The technology improves modularity, allowing data centers to expand memory without increasing latency. Future generations of PCIe are also expected to switch to optical interfaces for SSDs, which will provide faster and more reliable data transfer.

Not only Kioxia works in this direction. Intel is developing optical chips capable of providing 4 Tbit/s connections between CPUs and GPUs. TSMC, in turn, presented a compact universal photonic engine (CPOUPE), which provides an optical connection at the motherboard level at a speed of up to 6.4 Tbit/s. These developments are aimed at meeting the needs for computing power and reducing energy consumption in the context of the growing use of artificial intelligence and data centers.

Before

Kioxia (formerly Toshiba Memory) announced Expanding presence in the consumer solid state drive market by increasing product supply following the launch of a new brand based on combined manufacturing facilities.

The new brand will be launched following the internal integration of Kioxia’s SSD production capacity, including the capacity of OCZ Storage Solutions acquired in 2013. Kioxia plans to add SSD manufacturing capacity to them, which it will acquire from Lite-On Technology.

The deal for the purchase of Lite-On’s assets may include the transfer to Kioxia of the production of Plextor series drives, which will also be integrated into the Japanese company’s new solid-state drive division.