HyperLight has demonstrated a low-power 1.6T-DR8 optical transceiver reference module built around its thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) chiplet platform, with engineering and manufacturing support from Suzhou TFC Optical Communication.
The reference design is a fully retimed 1.6T-DR8 module specified at 20 W power consumption. HyperLight describes that figure as about a 20% reduction in module-level power versus alternative technologies. The design’s power reduction is tied to what HyperLight calls a “drop-in transmitter” implementation based on a single TFLN photonic integrated circuit (PIC).
On the optics side, HyperLight says the TFLN transmitter allows the module to run with a single continuous-wave (CW) laser, compared with two to four lasers “typically required” in conventional implementations. The company also attributes energy savings to operating directly from the native low-swing electrical output of the DSP, enabled by the low drive voltage of TFLN modulators.
For data center operators, the blunt takeaway is that a 20 W target for a fully retimed 1.6T module is the kind of number that gets attention in AI fabrics, where pluggables scale by the thousands and optics power becomes a measurable slice of rack and row budgets. But the “~20% lower” comparison is only as good as the baseline it’s being measured against, so engineers will still want apples-to-apples details (retimer choice, laser strategy, and operating conditions) when evaluating real deployments.
“TFLN is a key technology for future 400Gbps-per-lane optical systems,” said Mian Zhang, CEO of HyperLight. “What we are demonstrating today is that even at the current 200Gbps-per-lane generation, TFLN can already deliver massive power savings.”
HyperLight said it plans to show the module live at OFC 2026.
Source: HyperLight
