• Passage L20 -  a 3D-stacked 6.4 Tb/s optical engine designed for NPO and OBO applications and thus an intermediate solution between traditional pluggable transceivers and full co-packaging. It uses bi-directional (BiDi) multiplexing, which halves the number of fibres required (Figure 1).
  
  The L20 is a “drop-in” chip that uses industry-standard 224G PAM4 electrical interfaces, thus enabling manufacturers to easily adopt it without redesigning their entire chip architecture. Lightmatter claims that 16 L20s can replace 512 traditional pluggable modules in a high-end switch. The company expects to begin sampling the L20 to customers in late 2026.
• Passage L-Series – the L200 and L200X chiplets represent a more radical architectural shift and are designed for frontier-scale AI training clusters involving 100,000+ GPUs. Unlike the L20, which communicates via the edge of the die, the L-Series uses 3D stacking. This allows the photonics to connect across the entire surface of the chip, enabling speeds of up to 1.6 Tb/s per fibre using 16-wavelength DWDM. L-Series chiplets use the open UCIe interconnect standard. Developed in conjunction with Qualcomm, the L-Series chiplets are expected to sample in late 2026.
• vClick FAU - Lightmatter also demonstrated its vClick detachable fiber array units (FAU). The company claims that vClick is the industry’s first pluggable or detachable fiber interface for advanced AI chips, essentially turning fiber optic connections into plug-and-play" components.
• Guide VLSP Light Engine – Lightmatter demonstrated its DWDM laser engines using 8 to 16 wavelengths. The company claims industry-leading wavelength accuracy and self-healing through dynamic wavelength tuning (Figure 2).

𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 - in addition to NPO and CPO, Lightmatter photonics technology will also be offered in CPX and XPO form factors.

𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 – include its Bi-Directional Multiplexing and Very Large Scale Photonics (VLSP) laser engines:

• Bi-Directional Multiplexing - Lightmatter is the only company to offer Bi-Directional Multiplexing at the moment. This is important as BiDi halves the number of fibre cables required in a rack - critical for high-density racks.
• Guide DR Laser Engine - based on its Very Large Scale Photonics (VLSP) laser technology. Instead of single discrete laser diodes, Guide DR consists of a chip with 128 lasers on it. When a laser fails, Optical Circuit Switching (OCS) is used to route in a new laser, a process Lightmatter calls self-healing. Lightmatter’s Guide lasers are currently the only commercially available laser engines that can accommodate 16 wavelengths (8Tx/8Rx).

Based on a new OCP form factor known as Laser NIC or LNIC, Guide DRs are located inside the NIC tray. Only two units are required to power a 100T switch replacing 8 conventional ELSFP format lasers. In addition to powering its own optical engines, the Guide lasers can also be used with third-party optics, for example to power Ethernet switches.

𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐭 𝐎𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧

As a start-up, Lightmatter is punching above its weight and has developed advanced technologies such as Bi-Di Multiplexing and its VLSP laser engines ahead of more established, incumbent optics companies.

Lightmatter has already aligned itself with open standards such as UALink led by AMD, Intel and Meta, which competes against Nvidia. By joining NVLink Fusion, the company also becomes a validated hardware player for Nvidia’s proprietary ecosystem. This means that Lightmatter’s hardware solutions can be used equally in both camps, thus significantly increasing its addressable market.