Optical interconnect technologies advance to support AI scaling

Developments in optical interconnect technology are accelerating to meet the data movement demands of next-generation AI clusters.

LightSpeed Photonics has demonstrated a compact 400-Gbps optical interconnect component designed for co-packaged optics (CPO). The component, measuring 9 mm × 9 mm, operates at less than 2 W and utilizes heterogeneous integration to withstand surface reflow temperatures used in standard electronic assembly. The company is also working on PCIe-over-fibre technology to support PCIe 5.0 and 6.0, potentially allowing for the physical separation of compute, storage, and memory resources.

In a separate advancement, ams OSRAM has unveiled Thin-Film VCSEL (Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser) technology aimed at AI scale-up. Their micro-emitter arrays are designed for highly parallel optical architectures, demonstrating 32 Gb/s operation with high energy efficiency. This is being showcased alongside a connectorized multi-core fiber solution developed with partner BizLink.

Additionally, Openlight has begun sampling 3.2 Tbps DR8 silicon photonics PICs (Photonic Integrated Circuits), further expanding the available hardware for high-bandwidth optical connectivity.