Lightmatter announced a technical collaboration with Cadence to develop co-packaged optics (CPO) solutions that integrate Cadence's silicon-proven, high-speed SerDes IP with Lightmatter's Passage optical engine. By focusing on integration with advanced-node CMOS technology and industry-standard packaging workflows, the collaboration aims to pave the way for high-performance, manufacturing-ready CPO in next-generation AI and high-performance computing (HPC) environments. The transition to CPO represents a major inflection point for AI infrastructure, moving beyond traditional pluggables and near-packaged optics to fully integrated, 2D and 3D-stacked photonic interconnects.
The combination of Cadence's optics-optimized high-speed SerDes, Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) IP for disaggregation, and EDA expertise with Lightmatter's silicon photonics and laser leadership establishes a roadmap of silicon-proven technologies for the development of hyperscalers' custom AI infrastructure chips.
