Photon Bridge’s heterogeneous photonics platform marks a big step toward scalable, multi-wavelength light engines at wafer scale. With concrete demonstrations, the Eindhoven startup pushes the viability of co-packaged optics for AI-focused data centers.
They deliver over 30 mW of continuous-wave output per wavelength at room temperature at the chip edge facet. That’s enough to meet the power needs forecast for next-gen 1.6T and 3.2T co-packaged optical engines.
Photon Bridge separates active and passive photonic components. It uses III-V materials like indium phosphide for lasers and amplifiers, while keeping passive waveguides in silicon.
This material split lets them use larger waveguides, get better optical performance, improve manufacturing yield, and cut costs. Instead of putting a single high-power laser on each fiber, they multiplex several wavelengths on one fiber to reach the same total output.
This move reduces fiber count and makes assembly easier when integrated on a silicon photonics interposer. Improved thermal efficiency just comes with the territory, which helps tackle a central bottleneck for data-center and AI-oriented co-packaged optics.
The effort fits right into the broader industry push to move from electronic to photonic signaling on shorter links, aiming for more speed and less energy use.
Key technical achievement
The reported wafer-scale validation shows that heterogeneous photonics can deliver reliable per-wavelength power at room temperature. It also keeps things compatible with scalable manufacturing.
Demonstrating multi-wavelength operation on a single silicon interposer shows it’s practical to integrate lasers, amplifiers, and wavelength multiplexing in a small footprint.
By stacking active devices on a suitable III-V platform and routing signals through silicon photonics, Photon Bridge tackles a big challenge: keeping high optical performance across wavelengths without giving up yield or cost. The platform supports larger waveguides and more efficient thermal management, which are both essential for mainstream use in co-packaged optics.
Platform architecture and integration
- Heterogeneous integration—lasers and amplifiers sit on a III-V material stack, paired with passive silicon waveguides. Each subsystem gets to work on its ideal platform.
- Wavelength multiplexing on a single interposer—they combine and route multiple wavelengths on one silicon photonics interposer. This cuts down the fiber count and makes system assembly less of a headache.
- Wafer-scale potential—the approach aims to scale to wafer-level production, targeting manufacturability and steady performance across devices.
- Thermal efficiency—integration and multiplexing on a compact interposer make heat management better, which is a big deal in dense data-center setups.
- Data-center relevance—the tech is built to shorten links between processing and optical interconnects, letting AI workloads run faster with less energy per bit.
Implications for AI data centers and co-packaged optics
The Photon Bridge platform tackles a major industry trend: shifting from electronic to photonic signaling on the shortest data center links and at the network interface. By delivering practical per-wavelength power and packing multiple channels onto a single fiber, co-packaged optical engines can hit higher aggregate outputs without needing more fibers.
This change lowers assembly complexity and material cost. It also frees up space and improves thermal pathways—crucial for dense, AI-focused racks.
Basically, the technology lets silicon photonics handle the passive backbone while III-V active components provide the performance boost. The result is a more efficient, scalable, and manufacturable solution for external light sources powering co-packaged optics.
That could speed up adoption in data centers looking to scale AI workloads and shrink their energy footprint. It’s an exciting direction, though there’s always more work to do before it’s everywhere.
What’s next and industry impact
Photon Bridge’s validated platform finally offers a real shot at commercialization. Several milestones are coming up: more wafer-scale demonstrations, better yield across different wavelengths, and tweaks to integration that should get the product ready for mass production.
This strategy puts Photon Bridge in a solid spot as a supplier of external light sources for co-packaged optics. They’re going after a scalable, multi-wavelength solution that’s manufacturable and could seriously change how short-reach interconnects work in AI data centers.
As researchers and industry partners look at deployment, everyone’s watching reliability, packaging, and cost at scale. Those three factors will probably decide if heterogeneous photonics actually becomes a staple in next-gen data-center optics.
Here is the source article for this story: Photon Bridge passes key milestone for co-packaged optics’ light sources