Lumentum Holdings Inc., a designer and manufacturer of innovative optical and photonic products, and Ayar Labs Inc., a leader in chip-to-chip optical connectivity, have entered into a strategic collaboration agreement to deliver Continuous-Wave Wavelength Division Multiplexing Multi-Source Agreement (CW-WDM MSA)-compliant external laser sources in high volume. These light sources are critical to power Ayar Labs’ optical I/O solution, which delivers breakthrough bandwidth, energy efficiency and latency benefits for computing and networking over current short-reach copper links.

“Co-packaged optics to replace traditional copper interconnects is a massive new market opportunity broadly recognized by the industry and one that Lumentum is well-positioned to address with our proven laser technologies and manufacturing scale,” said Walter Jankovic, senior vice president and general manager of datacom at Lumentum. “Ayar Labs is a leader in the development and commercialization of this market opportunity, and we believe that working together, we can accelerate this technology transition for the benefit of all.”

“Since our founding, Ayar defined optical I/O as the disruptive transition from copper and electrons to fiber optics and photons for short-reach data communication,” said Charles Wuischpard, chief executive officer at Ayar Labs. “Ayar Labs’ patented silicon photonics technology and new industry standards like the CW-WDM MSA are critical to this transition, as is the development of the manufacturing, supply chain and packaging ecosystem to cost-effectively deliver the solution at scale in the millions of units. Lumentum is one of the largest and most efficient laser manufacturers in the world, and will provide the proven capability to address the volume, quality, and reliability requirements of our optical I/O solution.”

Last year, Ayar Labs demonstrated its 64-wavelength WDM optical source running at temperatures up to 100° C.

Lumentum lasers enable advanced manufacturing techniques and diverse applications including next-generation 3D sensing capabilities. Ayar Labs is disrupting the traditional performance, cost and efficiency curves of the semiconductor and computing industries by driving a 1000x improvement in interconnect bandwidth density at 10x lower power.

Learn more about the announcement and get a full rundown of Lumentum's and Ayar Labs' history in the light and laser industry.