Coherent Corp. launched PhotonLink, a new integrated optics platform designed to serve AI datacenter connectivity needs, the company announced Monday at the European Conference on Optical Communication in Málaga, Spain.
PhotonLink covers the full optical signal chain — generate, shape, guide and receive — across three architectures: co-packaged optics, near-packaged optics and chip-to-chip connectivity. The platform draws on Coherent’s component technologies, including indium phosphide lasers, vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser arrays, silicon photonics, precision optics, specialty fibers, detectors and isolators, offered in form factors such as external laser sources, fiber assemblies and optical modules.
Coherent said it has secured anchor customer engagements and long-term agreements for more than 10 co-packaged optics designs, more than 10 near-packaged optics designs and more than 5 chip-to-chip connectivity projects. Revenue from the platform is expected to begin ramping in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2026. The company is expanding its indium phosphide and specialty fiber manufacturing capacity to support production.
Jim Anderson, chief executive officer, said: "The next leap in AI requires more than faster chips — it requires a new way to connect them."
Coherent, headquartered in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, operates in more than 20 countries. The company said it has shipped more than 300 million indium phosphide lasers and over 1 billion indium phosphide and gallium arsenide photodetectors historically.
