DSP · Digital Signal Processor
In optics: the retimer/equalizer chip inside a pluggable transceiver that recovers the signal — the main power consumer that LPO and CPO designs remove.
Context: Parts 7, 8
Current numbers
~$26Bglobal AI optical-transceiver market in 2026, with laser/DSP supply as the capacity bottleneck
~30W → ~9Wper-1.6T-link power, pluggable DSP vs co-packaged optics — ~3.5x energy saving, 10x resilience
102.4 Tb/sfirst CPO Ethernet switch (Tomahawk 6 Davisson), shipping; the tier where pluggable DSP power and trace loss bite hardest