News: Optoelectronics
2 April 2025
Lumentum showcases next-gen InP chips enabling scalable AI data centers
Lumentum Holdings Inc of San Jose, CA, USA (which designs and makes optical and photonic products for optical networks and lasers for industrial and consumer markets) has announced new advancements in foundational indium phosphide (InP) photonic chip technologies designed to deliver higher bandwidth and more power-efficient connectivity for next-generation AI-driven data centers. Its latest InP innovations — enabling future 400Gbps-per-lane optical links, more efficient 200Gbps-per-lane optical links, and co-packaged optics — are being showcased in live demonstrations and a technical presentation in booth #2119 at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference & Exposition (OFC 2025) in San Francisco (1–3 April).
As AI workloads grow exponentially, optical link speeds in AI back-end networks are doubling about every two years, driving a critical need for innovation in leading-edge photonic technologies, notes Lumentum. At the same time, power availability and cooling requirements are placing increasing constraints on data centers, making energy efficiency more important than ever. Lumentum says that its InP component technologies directly address both challenges by enabling power-efficient bandwidth scaling in photonic interconnects.
“Building on decades of InP expertise, Lumentum is driving industry technology leadership and volume production readiness for the future 400G-per-lane generation of optical interconnects, along with more efficient 200G-per-lane optical interconnects, to enable data-center compute capacity scaling,” says Matt Sysak, chief technology officer of Cloud and Networking. “Lumentum InP technology is also enabling new co-packaged optics solutions to significantly reduce power consumption in AI data-center networks, supporting larger AI installations and accelerating the transition from copper to photonic interconnects.”
Advancing 400Gbps-per-lane laser technology
At OFC 2025, Lumentum is demonstrating 400Gbps-per-lane photonic technologies poised to enable the 3.2T generation of optical transceivers in live demonstrations and partner announcements, including:
- 448G EML: Lumentum is demonstrating 448Gbps data transmission using a 224GBaud PAM4 externally modulated laser (EML) technology in collaboration with Keysight Technologies and NTT Innovative Devices at booth #1301. The firm’s high-bandwidth InP EML will enable next-generation power-efficient, high-speed optical interconnects for AI and cloud infrastructure.
- 450G PAM4 DFB-MZI: A live demonstration of Lumentum’s 450Gbps PAM4 distributed feedback (DFB) laser with an integrated Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) modulator is highlighting another of the firm’s 400G-per-lane technologies. Also based on Lumentum’s high-speed InP photonic technology platform, the DFB–MZI provides superior chirp control, power efficiency and reduced signal distortion, which are critical advantages for longer-reach applications and complements Lumentum’s 400G-per-lane EML technology.
High-efficiency 200Gbps-per-lane transmitter technology
Lumentum claims to be currently delivering best-in-class transmit and receive components designed to meet the demands of next-generation AI data centers. Transitioning from 100Gbps to 200Gbps lane speed enables data-center bandwidth scaling to support accelerated AI workloads. Lumentum’s 200G-per-lane InP EMLs are available now.
To address power challenges in bandwidth scaling, Lumentum engineers presented a technical paper at OFC 2025 detailing results from new 200G-per-lane differential drive electro-absorption modulated laser (DD EML). These lasers operate at a lower drive voltage, reducing power dissipation while offering excellent signal integrity and cross-talk immunity.
Complementing the 200G EMLs is Lumentum’s 200G Lens Integrated Photodiode (LIPD), which features high responsivity and wide bandwidth. The 200G LIPD integrates seamlessly with flip-chip bonding techniques.
Ultra-high-power lasers for co-packaged optics
Lumentum’s ultra-high-power (UHP) 1310nm DFB lasers are engineered for the demanding requirements of co-packaged optics (CPO) to support higher-density optical interconnects with enhanced power efficiency, reliability and density. Lumentum says that the UHP platform’s proven high reliability is rooted in its long-standing leadership in InP pump lasers for demanding Raman amplification applications.
Lumentum was recently selected as an NVIDIA silicon photonics ecosystem partner, and its ultra-high-power, high-efficiency lasers are integrated into NVIDIA’s newly announced Spectrum-X Photonics and Quantum-X Photonics networking switches.
Lumentum showcasing optical innovations for cloud, AI and networking infrastructure at OFC
