Vuzix ships waveguide optical interconnect kit samples for AI data centers

Vuzix has started shipping sample units of its Causeway waveguide bridge, an optical interconnect component aimed at AI data center applications including co-packaged optics (CPO) architectures. The company is also making a broader optical interconnect evaluation kit available to “select prospective customers and ecosystem partners” for testing inside data center interconnect environments.

The initial shipments are Vuzix-designed Causeway waveguide bridge samples, which the company describes as the core optical element of its evaluation kit. In a current demonstration configuration, the architecture is designed to support evaluation of up to 19,200 parallel optical channels over an optical path length of about 30 mm.

The broader evaluation kit is designed to pair Vuzix’ planar waveguide optical architecture with microLED emitter and photodetector test structures. Vuzix says the setup is intended for bench-level optical-path characterization, insertion-loss measurement, coupling and alignment studies, crosstalk evaluation, and packaging development. The company also says it’s developing waveguide samples for VCSEL (vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser) sources, using the same design and replication platform.

For data center engineers, this kind of planar optical routing work is part of a wider push to move optics closer to compute and switching silicon, with the goal of addressing power, complexity, and performance constraints of high-speed copper interconnects as traffic between GPUs, accelerators, and switches keeps rising. But “evaluation kit” is the key phrase here: Vuzix is putting hardware in partners’ hands for characterization and packaging studies, not describing a deployed, production interconnect in shipping systems.

Vuzix says its technical foundation for the effort includes patent-pending compact planar optical architectures, high-precision replication of nanoscale optical features, custom waveguide design capability, and US-based development and volume manufacturing. The company designs and manufactures diffractive waveguides on nanoimprint lithography lines in Rochester, New York, using processes and materials developed for volume replication. It says those capabilities can apply to optical interconnect components such as planar optical link structures, embedded optical routing layers, and optical couplers.

“Causeway is the core optical bridge in our evaluation kit, and initial shipments allow qualified partners to begin testing and characterizing the optical path directly,” said Paul Travers, president and CEO of Vuzix. He also said that “early optical interconnect findings support scaling wide, parallel waveguide architectures toward multi-terabit aggregate bandwidth in practical package configurations.”

Vuzix is directing interested semiconductor, photonics, advanced packaging, and optical interconnect participants to request evaluation samples and kit access via its CPO/NPO information page.