NewPhotonics has introduced its Syncra micro-ring modulator (MRM) technology for silicon photonics co-packaged optics (CPO), pairing it with the company’s Niox photonic monitoring and real-time calibration approach to run MRMs without heaters. The pitch is straightforward: remove heater power and avoid thermal hot spots while keeping a ring modulator stable enough for dense optical engines.
Syncra is a silicon photonics-based MRM designed to modulate PAM4 RF signals and maintain thermal stability without heaters or monitoring photodiodes (MPDs). For CPO designs where optics are integrated closely with switching or compute, heater power and localized thermal gradients can become a scaling constraint, especially when many channels are packed into a compact footprint.
Niox is NewPhotonics’ device technology for monitoring energy in waveguides without consuming photons via an MPD, and for performing real-time wavelength calibration “into phase” without added heaters. In this architecture, Niox-enabled heaterless MRM operation is intended to stay stable as temperature varies, while targeting near-zero energy consumption associated with heater control and reducing localized heating that can drive thermal cross talk between adjacent photonic elements.
Dropping heaters from ring-based modulators is a meaningful engineering goal because heater arrays don’t just burn watts; they also create temperature gradients that are hard to manage as integration density rises. But the proof for operators and system designers will be in how tightly the approach holds wavelength alignment under real platform conditions, including temperature swings and packaging-induced thermal coupling.
“Delivering next generation co-packaged optics with real impact on both power and performance bottlenecks requires a multi-disciplinary approach to silicon photonics integration,” said NewPhotonics CTO Yosef Ben Ezra. “We are paving the transition from pluggables to co-packaged optics in the data center with innovative optics-first technologies that will scale connectivity for AI in pragmatic and progressive ways over the coming decade.”
NewPhotonics said both Syncra and Niox are implemented in a standard silicon photonics process without process development kit (PDK) modifications, and the company plans to show a demonstration at OFC 2026.
Source: NewPhotonics
