German scientists achieve record 500 Gbps with new silicon-germanium chip

German scientists have reached a milestone in this process with the development of a so-called “track-and-hold” circuit based on silicon and germanium (SiGe). This component acts as a kind of “interface” that captures extremely fast-changing analog signals and prepares them for digital conversion.

The new chip from the Heinz Nixdorf Institute and its research team can handle more than 500 gigabits per second (Gbps) in a single channel using quadrature amplitude modulation. In multi-channel configurations, the transfer rate could even exceed 100 terabits per second, which is crucial for long-distance backbone communication networks.

The use of silicon-germanium technology is no coincidence. This material enables significantly higher transistor switching speeds while reducing power consumption. This is a critical factor for the future of data centers, servers, and cloud services, where higher bandwidth directly improves the efficiency of the entire system.

Maxim Weizel, a researcher on the project, points out that the design faced extraordinary technical challenges. At such high frequencies, even the smallest error can cause signal distortion, or so-called phase noise. To achieve the necessary accuracy, they relied on advanced simulations and high-performance computing, overcoming the limitations of existing measurement systems.

The development of this chip, which also involved institutions such as RWTH Aachen University, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and DESY, confirms that speed is becoming a decisive competitive advantage in the context of artificial intelligence. The results of this work are published in the professional literature on integrated electron-photonic systems for ultrafast signal processing.