Avicena to Demonstrate World’s First Connectorized microLED Optical Interconnect for AI Infrastructure at ECOC 2026

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Avicena, the pioneer in microLED-based optical interconnects, today announced that it will demonstrate the industry’s first connectorized microLED optical interconnect. The new LightBundle™ eKit implementation combines Avicena’s high-density, laser-free microLED transceiver technology with an inline detachable optical interface, providing a practical path to assembling, testing, servicing, and upgrading optical connectivity in next-generation AI systems.

Avicena will demonstrate the connectorized LightBundle eKit at Stand 1365 during ECOC Exhibition 2026 , taking place September 21–23 at the Palacio de Ferias y Congresos de Málaga in Málaga, Spain.

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The announcement builds on Avicena’s recent shipment of the world’s first 1 Tbps microLED optical interconnect evaluation kits. Those systems incorporate as many as 335 independent microLED data channels operating at up to 3 Gbps per channel coupled through Avicena’s multicore fiber technology to integrated photodetector arrays. The connector uses an industry standard MPO form factor combined with a ferrule optimized for multicore fiber bundles.

By adding a connectorized optical interface, Avicena is advancing the LightBundle technology platform to meet the critical deployment requirements of AI infrastructure.

Artificial intelligence systems require rapidly increasing bandwidth between XPUs, memory, network interfaces, and switch fabrics. As these systems scale, conventional copper interconnects face growing limitations in reach, routing density, signal integrity, and energy efficiency.

Optics can overcome copper’s reach limitations, but conventional optical technologies based on lasers and silicon photonics can introduce significant power, thermal, cost, packaging, and reliability challenges—particularly when optical connectivity must be placed close to high-performance compute and memory silicon.

LightBundle replaces lasers with dense arrays of microLED transmitters coupled through multicore fiber to integrated photodetector arrays. Its wide-and-slow architecture distributes bandwidth across hundreds of low-power optical channels, enabling high aggregate throughput without requiring the extremely high per-lane speeds and complex signal processing associated with conventional optical links.

The new connectorized implementation adds the modularity required for practical system integration. A detachable optical interface can simplify system assembly, enable independent testing of electronic and optical subsystems, improve field serviceability, and support flexible routing between packages, boards, trays, and racks.

“Introducing the world’s first connectorized microLED optical interconnect marks an important step in moving microLED connectivity from breakthrough technology to a deployable platform for AI infrastructure,” said Marco Chisari, CEO of Avicena . “Following the shipment of our 1 Tbps LightBundle evaluation kits, we are now demonstrating how the same fundamental architecture can be implemented with the modularity and serviceability required by system manufacturers.