Sivers Photonics demonstrates CW-WDM MSA compliant DFB laser arrays with Ayar Labs’ SuperNova™ at OFC 2023

San Diego, California – Sivers Semiconductors AB (“Sivers”) today announces that its subsidiary, Sivers Photonics, has successfully demonstrated its CW-WDM MSA compliant distributed feedback (DFB) laser arrays with Ayar Labs’ SuperNova™ remote optical source, supporting next generation applications including AI connections, disaggregated data centers, 6G, phased array sensory systems and more.

The joint demonstration showcased the 8-wavelength DFB laser array from Sivers Photonics, powering the Ayar Labs SuperNova™ light source. The live demonstration taking place at the Sivers Photonics booth (#5400) throughout the OFC exhibition shows two SuperNova™ modules, each with 64 total wavelengths, running without active cooling.

Built on the InP100 product platform at Sivers 100mm UK wafer foundry, the DFB laser array is fully compliant with CW-WDM MSA (Continuous-Wave Wavelength Division Multiplexing Multi-Source Agreement) standards, with an output power of more than 65 mW per channel CW operation and 400 GHz channel spacing around 1300 nm. These devices are compatible in a variety of integration platforms, such as silicon photonics and co-packaged optics (CPO).

The SuperNova™ optical source from Ayar Labs provides up to 16 wavelengths of light, powering up to 16 ports. Combined with Ayar Labs’ TeraPHY™ optical I/O chiplet, this complete solution delivers up to 4 terabit per second bi directional data throughput, with nanosecond (ns) latency, whilst consuming a fraction of the power required for traditional electrical I/O.

Revenue generated by the CPO market reached about US$6 million in 2020 and is expected to reach US$2.2 billion in 2032, for a 65% compound annual growth rate in the 2020–2032 period.1 This growth will be driven by CPO’s substantial energy savings (>30%) and capital expenditure savings, measured in dollars/Gbps, over pluggable optics.(1)

“It is a great pleasure work with Ayar Labs as they continue to showcase technology leadership with Sivers Photonics support with this live silicon Photonics demonstration. Our DFB arrays contribute to Ayar Labs industry-first milestone using the Global Foundries SiPi platform which will help unleashing the power of next generation computing,” said Anders Storm, Group CEO, Sivers Semiconductors

“As communication traffic grows rapidly, we are pleased to enable Ayar Labs to deliver the optical interconnects needed for these data-intensive applications,” said William McLaughlin, Managing Director, Sivers Photonics. “We are thrilled to demonstrate our joint technology live, at one of the industry’s top events.”

“We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Sivers Photonics. Their InP100 laser arrays are a vital part of the technology helping to drive adoption of in-package Optical I/O,”  said Matt Sysak, Vice President of Laser Engineering at Ayar Labs.

Live Demos:

• Live demonstration of Ayar Labs’ SuperNova™ optical source in Sivers Photonics OFC booth #5400
• Live demonstration of Ayar Labs’ 4 Tbps optical I/O solution in OFC booth #6008

1. Co-Packaged Optics for Data Centers 2022 Report, Yole Development, 2022