At TSMC's European OIP forum this week, Alchip and Ayar Labs demonstrated a fully integrated, in-package optical I/O engine built on TSMC's COUPE platform that enables optical connectivity for next-generation AI accelerators. The solution — which combines Ayar's silicon-photonics TeraPHY IC with Alchip's electrical interface die and a detachable fiber connector — can deliver up to 100 Tb/s of bandwidth per accelerator and connect to other chips using the industry-standard UCIe interface. The solution is aimed at hardware developers who need optical connectivity but cannot build their own optical subsystem from scratch.
When TSMC introduced its Compact Universal Photonic Engine (COUPE) framework in 2024, the company primarily targeted large chip developers like AMD or Nvidia that can afford to build their own electronic integrated circuits (EICs) and photonic integrated circuits (PICs), and then order TSMC to build them.
