MediaTek partners with Ranovus to enter the CPO market
Taiwanese chip firm MediaTek is making a move into the field of Heterogeneous Integration Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) via a partnership with optical communications firm Ranovus.
The two companies have announced plans to launch a customised Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) design platform for CPO. The objective is to offer heterogeneous integration solutions for high-speed electronic and optical signal transmission interfaces (I/O).
Interest in CPO has increased thanks to the rise of GenAI, and its demand for more memory bandwidth and higher I/O density and speeds. CPO offers a solution because it shortens the electrical link length through advanced packaging and the co-optimisation of electronics and photonics.
MediaTek says its CPO solution will integrate its in-house SerDes product with Ranovus's packaged Odin optical engines. It claims the offering can reduce board space and can lower system power by up to 50% compared to existing solutions.
“The emergence of Generative AI has resulted in significant demand not only for higher memory bandwidth and capacity, but also for higher I/O density and speeds, integration of electrical and optical I/O is the latest technology that allows MediaTek to deliver the most flexible leading edge data center ASIC solutions.” said Jerry Yu, Senior Vice President at MediaTek.
