Ayar Labs

Ayar Labs is a Silicon Valley-based company developing optical interconnect solutions for chip-to-chip communications. The company's core technology replaces traditional copper-based electrical interconnects with silicon photonics-based optical I/O, enabling significantly higher bandwidth, lower latency, and reduced power consumption in data transfer between chips. Ayar Labs' flagship products include the TeraPHY optical I/O chiplet and the SuperNova light source. The TeraPHY chiplet integrates alongside host processors to convert electrical signals to optical, allowing data transmission via fiber optics. As of March 2024, Ayar Labs demonstrated a 16 Tbps bi-directional bandwidth solution, capable of driving 256 optical carriers - a level of performance crucial for AI workloads. The company's technology aims to address bandwidth bottlenecks in various applications, including artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, data centers, and telecommunications. Ayar Labs utilizes a chiplet architecture, designed to be packaged with compute tiles from other chipmakers using open standards like Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCI-express). The company's optical I/O technology is manufactured by GlobalFoundries using its GF Fotonix platform.

Key customers and partnerships

Ayar Labs has secured strategic partnerships with several industry leaders. The company is collaborating with NVIDIA to develop next-generation AI infrastructure based on optical I/O technology. This partnership aims to address the increasing bandwidth demands of AI and machine learning workloads. Ayar Labs is also working with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to enhance future versions of HPE's Slingshot interconnect switching systems. The collaboration focuses on developing high-performance networking solutions and novel disaggregated system architectures. Additionally, Ayar Labs has partnered with Corning Incorporated to create an optical leadership solution by coupling Ayar Labs' TeraPHY optical I/O chiplets with Corning's glass waveguide module. Ericsson is also involved in this AI-driven solution as part of their technology exploration for future mobile systems. Furthermore, Ayar Labs is working with Teramount to showcase a concept for the next-generation TeraVERSE detachable connector, designed to meet the infrastructure demands of next-generation AI.