Astera Labs to acquire German startup aiXscale Photonics

Astera Labs, a Silicon Valley company specializing in high-speed interconnects for rack-level AI infrastructure, has agreed to acquire German startup aiXscale Photonics.

Founded by Jeremy Witzens and Florian Merget as a spin-off from the Institute of Integrated Photonics at RWTH Aachen University, aiXscale has developed proprietary wafer-scale precision glass molding technology.

The firm’s ultra-high-precision optical glass interposer solutions are said to provide reliable, low-loss and cost-effective assembly of optical transceiver sub-assemblies and co-packaged optics, for high-volume datacom and telecom applications.

“The acquisition is expected to help enable Astera Labs to develop photonic scale-up solutions by combining aiXscale's fiber-chip coupling technologies with Astera Labs' connectivity and signal processing portfolio,” announced Nasdaq-listed Astera.

Astera at the Nasdaq

Photonic chiplets
According to Astera the evolution to what it calls “AI Infrastructure 2.0” demands scale-up connectivity solutions that meet aggressive speed, power, and reliability requirements while facilitating high volume, rack-scale integration.

“As the AI industry prepares for the next wave of infrastructure requirements, optical connectivity is critical to supporting the massive bandwidth needs of scale-up systems with hundreds of AI accelerators,” it stated.

“Photonic chiplets represent one of the key enabling technologies to deliver the performance and efficiency required for advanced AI infrastructure.”

Sanjay Gajendra, COO and president at the San Jose company, said: “The transition to AI Infrastructure 2.0 demands purpose-built optical solutions that can handle the complexity and capacity needs of future scale-up networks.

“This acquisition will bring critical talent and advanced photonic technology that, when combined with our fabric switch and signal conditioning expertise, will unleash the full potential of rack-scale AI deployments.”

“Our optical input/output precision glass coupler technology has been developed specifically to solve the key challenge of efficiently coupling light between photonic integrated circuits and optical fibers in high-density applications,” Witzens explained, with Merget adding:

“Joining Astera Labs will allow us to deploy and scale this technology as part of a comprehensive photonic solution that will help define the future of AI infrastructure connectivity.”

Heraeus investment
In July this year Astera opened its new corporate headquarters in San Jose, with plans to accommodate up to 900 employees.

That followed the firm’s March 2024 initial public offering (IPO) of stock that raised more than $670 million in net proceeds. For the second quarter of this year, the firm posted a net income of $51.2 million as sales more than doubled year-on-year to $192 million.

aiXscale had previously attracted investment from Heraeus Noblelight - subsequently a division of Excelitas Technologies - as part of a wider collaboration between the two firms that focused on automated packaging of photonic integrated circuits and more cost-effective production of electro-optical transceivers.

Source: optics.org