The start of shipments follows the presentation and demonstration of the LightBundle eKit in March 2026 during OFC26 (Optical Fiber Communication Conference) and allows the technology to move from the first demonstrations to the evaluation of terabit class connections in the laboratories of manufacturers and developers.
Unlike conventional laser-based optical architectures, LightBundle uses microLED arrays to transmit data. The proposal aims to combine high bandwidth density, low power consumption, operation at high temperatures, and transmission distances greater than those practical with copper electrical interconnects.
335 microLED channels to achieve 1 Tb/s
The new version of the LightBundle eKit incorporates an array of 335 microLED channels. Each of these can transmit data at speeds of up to 3 Gb/s.
The transmitters are connected via a multi-core fiber bundle developed by Avicenna with an integrated array of 335 photodiodes at the receiving end. The combined operation of these channels provides an aggregate gross throughput of up to 1 Tb/s.
Instead of increasing the speed of a small number of channels, Avicenna's architecture uses hundreds of parallel, lower-speed optical links. This approach allows bandwidth to be distributed among a large number of microLEDs and photodetectors.
The absence of lasers is one of the main differences compared to the photonic solutions commonly used in high-speed optical communications. Avicenna proposes LightBundle as an architecture capable of simplifying certain aspects of optical transmission and operating under demanding thermal conditions within high-performance computing systems.
An optical alternative for connections within AI systems
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence systems is significantly increasing the bandwidth required to communicate between accelerators, memory, CPUs, and switching fabrics.
As the speed of these interfaces increases, copper electrical connections face greater challenges related to distance, routing density, and power consumption. Optics allows for extended reach, although conventional solutions based on lasers and silicon photonics introduce their own limitations in terms of power consumption, cost, density, and thermal management.
LightBundle is geared precisely toward this intermediate space. The technology uses dense arrays of microLEDs coupled to multi-core fiber bundles that carry the signals to integrated photodetector arrays.
The scenarios considered include die-to-die and die-to-memory connections, as well as XPU-to-XPU, XPU-to-memory, XPU-to-CPU and XPU-to-switch links.
This allows the platform to be directed both to scale-in architectures, where it is necessary to provide very high density connections between components within the same system, and to scale-up configurations used to interconnect a greater number of accelerators and computing resources.
Assessment platform for manufacturers and development centers
The 1 Tb/s eKit is designed to allow hyperscalers, AI accelerator and memory manufacturers, networking companies, and system architects to evaluate microLED technology in their own labs.
The platform includes host interface boards, integrated diagnostic tools, and a graphical user interface for analyzing link behavior.
Among the parameters that can be studied are the integrity of the optical signal, the link budget, the quality of the eye diagram, crosstalk between channels, energy efficiency, and the bit error rate (BER).
These tools allow engineering teams to characterize the behavior of the technology before addressing its possible incorporation into future processing, memory, or communications architectures.
MicroLEDs facing the challenge of data movement
The energy consumption associated with data movement is becoming a major constraint on scaling AI infrastructures. Connections between accelerators, memory, and switches need to increase their capacity while simultaneously reducing high-speed electrical distances within systems.
Marco Chisari, CEO of Avicena, points out that LightBundle is aimed at covering the bandwidth density, consumption, reliability, range and cost needs of scale-in and scale-up connections used between XPU, memory, CPU and switches.
Bob Wheeler, an analyst at LightCounting, believes that having a 1 Tb/s evaluation platform will allow AI infrastructure developers to practically study the use of microLEDs in this type of connection.
The start of shipments thus represents a new step in moving microLED-based optical interconnects from technology demonstrations to evaluation within next-generation systems.
With 335 parallel optical channels and up to 1 Tb/s of aggregate capacity, LightBundle proposes a different approach to solving one of the major challenges of future AI architectures: moving increasing amounts of information between chips, memory and switching systems while keeping energy consumption and interconnection density under control.
