ITC 2026
Presenter: Meg O’Brien, Director of Product Engineering
Title: Scaling Silicon Photonics HVM Solutions for CPO
Abstract: As massive parallelism has supplanted traditional semiconductor scaling laws as the engine driving compute performance, connectivity bandwidth has become the critical bottleneck for AI infrastructure. Silicon photonics has emerged as a foundational enabling technology, and advanced 3D photonic interposers combining multi-reticle die complexes with silicon photonics are unlocking AI performance previously unattainable in the data center. However, realizing this at hyperscale volumes requires more than architectural innovation: it demands a mature, production-ready ecosystem capable of meeting the rigorous test, quality, and reliability standards that hyperscalers demand.
Scaling HVM for co-packaged optics (CPO) introduces a distinct set of technical and operational challenges. These span the full production stack — delivering known-good optical engines, scaling serviceability with detachable fiber array units, and robust assembly, packaging, and test solutions — all while satisfying the cost structures that CPO economics require. Test, in particular, represents a critical readiness gap: the complexity of 3D photonic integration and the tight coupling between photonic and electronic die demand novel test strategies and infrastructure that the ecosystem is still actively developing.
Closing these gaps requires established and emerging ecosystem partners moving rapidly in concert. This presentation details progress across these dimensions, examining the engineering and packaging challenges inherent to CPO integration, the novel chip architectures that shape test requirements, and the collaborative ecosystem development strategies necessary to bring CPO products to volume production release.
Date: October 15, 2026
Time: 4:10 PM
About ITC: International Test Conference is the world’s premier conference dedicated to the electronic test of devices, boards and systems-covering the complete cycle from design verification, test, diagnosis, failure analysis and back to process and design improvement. At ITC, test and design professionals can confront the challenges the industry faces, and learn how these challenges are being addressed by the combined efforts of academia, design tool and equipment suppliers, designers, and test engineers.