Amphenol and Luxtera today announced a strategic collaboration agreement to bring Silicon Photonics-based interconnect products to a variety of markets and applications. The two companies are joining forces to advance optical interconnect technology, positioning Amphenol at the forefront of the optical connectivity industry while at the same time expanding the reach of Luxtera’s technology to markets worldwide. Collaborating on the sales, marketing and development of multiple optical interconnect products, the partnership is a significant step forward in enabling high volume manufacturing of optical interconnects and addressing the burgeoning active optical cable (AOC) market. According to a recent report from IGI, the revenue for AOCs will increase significantly in the next five-years driven by growth in cloud computing, high performance computing and consumer video.

As part of the collaboration, Amphenol will market optical interconnect products based on Luxtera’s Silicon CMOS Photonics technology through its global sales and distribution channels, generating an additional revenue stream for both companies. Leveraging the advancements of Silicon CMOS Photonics, Luxtera’s AOC enables extended reach, higher reliability and reduced power at lower cost than traditional optics. The products covered under the agreement will address the high performance computing (HPC), Ethernet-enterprise and consumer electronics markets and will extend the benefits of Silicon CMOS Photonics to a wider audience.  Luxtera and Amphenol will jointly develop the next-generation optical interconnect products for 40Gbps and 100Gbps applications. As the industry continues to witness growing demands in bandwidth requirements, these solutions will overcome the technical challenges of legacy technologies to bring cost-effective, higher speed interconnects to the market.

“The collaboration between Amphenol and Luxtera will bring the innovation of Silicon Photonics to the forefront of the industry as a potential replacement of multimode fiber-based VCSEL technology, which is reaching performance limitations,” said Lisa Huff, Associate Component Analyst of CIR/Principal Analyst of Discerning Analytics. “Recent research for CIR’s upcoming optical interconnects report is showing that in the next few years we will see continued demand for higher speed and higher performance components. Combining expertise from Luxtera and Amphenol may accelerate the rate of product introduction to a wide range of markets including HPC and data centers.”

“Our collaboration with Luxtera will create a leadership position for Amphenol in the delivery of high speed optical interconnects.  It is a natural adjacency to AIPC’s core business of copper-based interconnect solutions and enables us to more rapidly offer our customers a full portfolio of extended-reach, low-power optical solutions.  Our combined technical expertise to develop 100Gbps solutions, along with our low cost manufacturing and channel strength, will provide significant, sustainable benefits to our customers,” said Stephanie West, General Manager of Amphenol Interconnect Products Corporation.

Utilizing Silicon CMOS Photonics technology, Luxtera combines nanophotonic elements with conventional CMOS circuits on a single, monolithic chip. This expertise combined with Amphenol’s advanced signal integrity capabilities, industry leading mechanical designs, PCB level design capabilities, and high volume manufacturing knowledge will result in delivering the performance of fiber optics at a lower cost and higher performance than traditional multimode fiber VCSEL interconnects.

“This collaboration accelerates the reach of Silicon CMOS Photonics-based solutions to a wider customer base, larger geographical area and multiple applications,” said Greg Young, CEO of Luxtera. “Luxtera has successfully introduced active optical cable and optics on motherboard products to market, and through this cooperation we will be able to service more customers and more applications, ultimately accelerating revenue growth for both companies.”