Avicena Announces Modular LightBundle™ Optical Interconnect Platform with > 1Tbps/mm I/O density and < 1pJ/bit

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 31, 2025--

Avicena, headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, is announcing its new scalable LightBundle™ interconnect platform at OFC 2025 in San Francisco, CA ( https://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/ ). LightBundle supports > 1Tbps/mm shoreline density and extends ultra-high density die-to-die (D2D) connections to > 10 meters at class leading sub-pJ/bit energy efficiency. This will enable AI scale-up networks to support large clusters of GPUs across multiple racks, eliminating reach limitations of current copper interconnects while drastically reducing power consumption.

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Increasingly sophisticated AI models are driving an unprecedented surge in demand for compute and memory performance, requiring interconnects with higher density, lower power, and longer reach for both processor-to-processor (P2P) and processor-to-memory (P2M) connectivity.

Nowhere is the demand higher than in the scale-up domain of AI datacenters where GPUs in a compute cluster are densely interconnected. Today the typical scale-up interconnect is passive copper with a reach limited to ~1 meter, constraining a GPU cluster to a single rack. The LightBundle interconnect extends the reach to more than 10 meters, enabling a single cluster to scale to hundreds or even thousands of GPUs across multiple racks. At the same time, LightBundle dramatically reduces the power consumption of these interconnects, significantly easing power delivery and cooling burdens.

The LightBundle interconnect is a modular transceiver chiplet-based architecture. Transceiver chiplets contain integrated microLED and PD arrays that are connected to other LightBundle transceiver chiplets via multi-core fiber bundles. They support dense, low power D2D interfaces such as UCIe or BOW. LightBundle chiplet transceivers are well-suited to various packaging architectures including co-packaged optics (CPO), on-board optics (OBO), and pluggable optical modules as well as active optical cables (AOC). Unlike silicon photonics, LightBundle interfaces can be integrated onto almost any IC process from a wide variety of foundries.

“At Avicena, we are excited to announce our modular, ultra-low power, scalable chiplet interconnect based on our LightBundle technology,” says Bardia Pezeshki, Co-Founder and CEO of Avicena. “Working with our hyperscale datacenter partners we have optimized our platform to address the specific needs of large clusters of GPUs in future Scale Up networks. We support shoreline densities of greater than 1Tbps/mm at power efficiencies at least 5x better than competing solutions.”

“As generative AI continues to evolve, the role of high bandwidth-density, low-power and low latency interconnects in scale-up networks cannot be overstated”, says Michael Fox, Founder & Managing Partner of InflectionPoint Research. “Avicena’s microLED based interconnect technology has the potential to deliver a paradigm shift in this domain of hyperscale AI Scale Up networks.”

Avicena at OFC 2025:

In addition to showcasing its LightBundle interconnect technology at Booth #1956, Avicena will participate in the following events:

Bardia Pezeshki, Co-Founder & CEO, will be presenting at the Workshop: How do Co-Packaged Optics Become Manufacturable?
Workshops provide an opportunity for attendees to interact informally on particularly compelling technological issues.
Sunday, March 30, 2025 – 16:00 – 18:30

Chris Pfistner, VP of Sales and Marketing, will be chairing Session 5 at the Optica Executive Forum:
Photonic Interconnects in AI Clusters with speakers from Microsoft, NVIDIA, Meta & Arista.
Monday, March 31, 2025 – 15:40 to 16:40 – Marriott Marquis, San Francisco, CA

Chris Pfistner, VP of Sales and Marketing, will also be presenting at the Market Watch Session:
MW Panel 5: Optical Network Evolution for AI/ML, Architectures & Drivers
Thursday, April 3, 2025, 10:15 – 11:45

About Avicena

AvicenaTech Corp. is a privately held company located in Sunnyvale, CA, developing LightBundle, a next generation optical interconnect architecture for AI/ML, HPC, sensors, 5G wireless and aerospace applications. This unique, flexible ultra-low energy technology is based on microLEDs, offering both very high bandwidth and low latency. Now, system designers can disaggregate functions like compute and memory and radically grow system throughput. Avicena’s technology is a key building block in the evolution of networking and computing that will reduce the energy impact on our planet.

For more information, visit https://avicena.tech

Scalable LightBundle Chiplet Platform for D2D Interconnects

Hours before college basketball crowns its next champion, the future of college sports will be hanging in the balance in a California courtroom.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken's scheduled hearing Monday in a courtroom in Oakland is expected to be the last one before the changes will truly begin under an industry-changing, $2.8 billion settlement of a 5-year-old lawsuit against the NCAA and the nation's largest conferences. Among other things, it will clear the way for schools to share up to $20.5 million each with their athletes.

Wilken already has granted preliminary approval for the settlement. It was unknown whether she will give final approval at Monday's hearing, which is expected to include testimony from some of those objecting to details of the sprawling plan. LSU gymnast and influencer Olivia Dunne is among the 18 people scheduled to testify, though she is expected to appear via Zoom.

The new structure outlined by the settlement, which represents a shift in billions of dollars from the schools into the pockets of athletes, is supposed to go into effect on July 1.

Universities across the country have been busy making plans, under the assumption Wilken will put the terms into effect.

“We're going to have a plan going into July 1, then we're probably going to spend the next year figuring out how good that plan is and how we need to modify it going forward,” said Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin, whose department is among the biggest in the country and includes a Gators men's basketball team playing for the national title Monday night against Houston.

The so-called House settlement, named after Arizona State swimmer Grant House, actually decides three similar lawsuits that were bundled into one. The defendants are the NCAA and the Southeastern, Big Ten, Atlantic Coast, Big 12 and Pac-12 conferences, all of whom have been touting the settlement as the best path forward for their industry.

“It's a huge step forward for college sports, especially at the highest level," said NCAA President Charlie Baker, whose organization continues to seek antitrust protections from Congress. “My biggest problem with the way the whole thing works right now is the schools have been removed from the primary relationship with the student-athletes.”

The most ground-shifting part of the settlement calls on schools from the biggest conferences to pay some 22% of their revenue from media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships — which equals about $20.5 million in the first year — directly to athletes for use of their name, images and likeness (NIL).

Still allowed would be NIL payments to athletes from outside sources, which is what triggered the seismic shift that college sports has endured over the last four years. For instance, Cooper Flagg of Duke reportedly makes $4.8 million in NIL deals from groups affiliated with the school and others.

The settlement calls for a “clearinghouse” to make sure any NIL deal worth more than $600 is pegged at “fair market value." It's an attempt to prevent straight “pay for play” deals, though many critics believe the entire new structure is simply NIL masquerading as that.

Another key element is the $2.8 billion in back damages to athletes who played sports between 2016 and 2024 and were not entitled to the full benefits of NIL at the time they attended schools. Those payments are being calculated by a formula that will favor football and basketball players and will be doled out by the NCAA and the conferences.

The settlement also calls for replacing scholarship limits with roster limits. The effect would be to allow every athlete to be eligible for a scholarship while cutting the number of spots available.

There will be winners and losers under such a formula, though some fear it could signal the end of the walk-on athlete in college sports and also imperil smaller sports programs that train and populate the U.S. Olympic team.

AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

Florida's Alijah Martin (15) dunks the ball against Auburn during the second half in the national semifinals at the Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Saturday, April 5, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

UConn center Jana El Alfy (8) and UConn guard Paige Bueckers (5) react during the first half of a national semifinal Final Four game against UCLA during the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Auburn guard Tahaad Pettiford (0) moves on the court against Michigan State during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)