ECOC 2025 presents latest developments in optical communications

02 Oct 2025

Expo in Copenhagen, Denmark, showcases photonic innovations from big name suppliers.

The three-day ECOC Exhibition 2025, focused on optical communications, held last week in Copenhagen, Denmark, hosted 340 companies and more than 8300 global attendees, according to its organizers. In its Market Focus theater, industry leaders saw presentations on topics such as AI-driven networks, coherent technologies, 448G interconnects, and subsystem evolution.

In the event’s Product Focus Theater, sponsored by Nokia, visitors attended a program of presentations highlighting the latest developments. These included OpenLight Photonics giving insights on heterogeneous integration, Nokia outlining how coherent pluggables are transforming telecom infrastructure, updates from Huawei, Samtec, and FEMTUM, and demonstrations such as NewPhotonics’ 448G per lane Eye Diagram.

Related news: GlobalFoundries, Corning collaborate on co-packaged optics.

The associated exhibition featured many new product launches and technology announcements. Lumentum unveiled advanced transceiver modules designed for AI-driven data centers, including its 1.6T DR8 OSFP pluggable and ultrawideband nano-iTLA laser. Other highlights included Gemtek’s OMDN-107 800Gbps transmitter and Hyperlabs’ HL9409 ultra-broadband 100 GHz balun.

Launches and announcements

Coherent showcased some of its latest innovations in next-generation optical communications and contributed to the Market Focus program through panels, workshops, and round table sessions. “ECOC is the European premier global stage for innovation in datacenters and communications, and we’re excited to demonstrate how in Coherent we are shaping next-gen optical networking,” said Dr. Sanjai Parthasarathi, Chief Marketing Office. New products presented included:

Coherent showcased many of its latest optical communications innovations.

• 2D VCSEL Array – Delivering power-efficient, compact optical links optimized for short-reach AI/ML datacenter interconnects, this 1.6T (32x50G) array is designed for scale-up networks.
• 100G ZR for Single-Fiber Operation – The industry’s first dual-laser QSFP28 DCO module for single-fiber, bi-directional applications delivers 10x capacity upgrades on existing 10G infrastructure.
• 400mW CW Laser – Built on the BH DFB platform, this new 400 mW CW laser delivers stable high output, ultra-low noise, and narrow linewidths in a compact chip-on-carrier format. It is specified for next-generation co-packaged optics (CPO) and silicon photonics, and optical interconnects.
• Quad-Channel IC Family – Including silicon photonics Mach-Zehnder drivers for 800G/1.6T pluggables and a chipset for 400G ZR/ZR+ links. These fiber-optic ASICs enable faster, more efficient optical transceivers for cloud, AI, and telecom applications.

Lumentum made several live technology and product demonstrations, reflecting the company’s focus on enabling AI-driven data centers and the world’s largest communications networks. “As AI and Cloud workloads accelerate at an unprecedented pace, the need for faster, more scalable optical solutions has never been greater,” said Rafik Ward, chief strategy and marketing officer at Lumentum. “With our latest innovations, Lumentum is shaping the future of network infrastructure and empowering customers to build the data centers and AI networks of tomorrow.”

• ELSFP Transceivers for CPO Architectures – External laser source modules in the ELSFP pluggable form factor are designed to advance co-packaged optics architectures in high-bandwidth environments such as hyperscale data centers and AI clusters. The ECOC demonstration highlighted pluggable modules incorporating Lumentum’s ultra-high-power (UHP) 1310 nm lasers, enabling next-generation switches and AI processors with integrated optical connectivity. By separating the laser source from the optical engine and placing it at the system faceplate, these modules improve thermal management and reliability, while their design enhances serviceability and modularity. This product is expected to be sampling in calendar Q1 2026.
• 1.6T DR8 TRO OSFP transceiver for Cloud and AI applications – The 1.6T DR8 TRO OSFP pluggable transceiver module, which provides 8x200 Gbps data connectivity over 500 m of single-mode fiber optics targeting hyperscale Cloud and AI applications. Its “Transmit-Retimed Optical” design offers a significantly lower power dissipation compared to a Fully Retimed Optical transceiver module. The product leverages internal Lumentum manufacturing and components and is currently ramping into volume production.

MicroLED interconnect developer Avicena chose ECOC 2025 to announce a “major milestone” with its demonstration of a microLED-based optical link operating at an industry-leading Tx power of 200 femtojoules per bit at <1E-12 raw bit error rate (i.e. with no forward error correction). “This achievement highlights the efficiency of Avicena’s scalable LightBundle platform for high-performance computing and AI data centers,” the firm stated.

Using a high-sensitivity receiver, modified from a high-volume foundry camera sensor process, the demonstration link operates at a significantly reduced microLED drive currents. Since LEDs do not require the threshold current typical of lasers, they run fast even at low currents. In this live demonstration, the LED was shown to operate at about 0.25mA drive current and 4Gb/s and is paired with a hybrid-bonded camera sensor and discrete TIA.

“By leveraging a highly sensitive receiver, a minor modification to a high-volume camera process, and the unique properties of microLEDs, we can achieve unmatched energy efficiency in our LightBundle interconnects,” said Bardia Pezeshki, CTO of Avicena. “This breakthrough shows how microLED technology can replace legacy laser-based links with a simpler, more scalable, and far lower power solution.”

ShunYun Technology (SYT), a Vietnam-based manufacturer of optical transceivers, and NewPhotonics, an Israel-based designer of integrated photonic integrated circuit chips for data center optical interconnects, announced at ECOC a strategic “OSAT partnership” for volume manufacturing of the NewPhotonics NPG product line.

Their joint statement said, “Ethernet pluggable optics are forecasted to scale to >100 million by 2028 to meet data center scale out requirements, creating an urgent demand for volume PIC manufacturing. As a global provider of volume transceiver manufacturing today, the SYT supply chain, excellent quality standards, and customer and ecosystem technology provide the strong, single-point manufacturing hub ideal for volume PIC production.

“This collaboration reflects our strong commitment to mass-producing integrated silicon photonics solutions in response to the high demand for optical interconnect innovation by hyperscalers and AI factories worldwide,” said SYT Sales VP TF Tseng. “We have a clear plan and process to ramp production of the innovative NPG PIC chip at the scale, reliability and performance the market expects.”

NewPhotonics is preparing for high volume manufacturing of the NPG PIC transmitter on chips for 1.6T DSP-based transceivers and the 800G and1.6T LPO+™ optical signal processing chip.

NLM Photonics, a developer of hybrid organic electro-optic technology, announced “breakthrough validation results” from third-party testing of multi-channel silicon-organic hybrid photonic integrated circuits capable of 1.6 terabit and 3.2 terabit performance.

In addition to record-breaking modulation efficiency and bandwidth, NLM’s 1.6T SOH PIC achieved 224Gbit/s per channel data transmission in tests. These results represent real-world improvements in 200G performance and pave the way for 400G in a commercially available silicon photonics platform, the company stated at ECOC 2025.

“The demand from AI data centers for high bandwidth and lower power, while not breaking the bank, is creating unprecedented challenges for the photonics industry,” said Brad Booth, CEO of NLM Photonics. “Traditional photonic platforms are severely challenged to meet next-gen demands. Our 1.6T and 3.2T SOH PICs demonstrate the ability of NLM’s solutions to permit silicon photonic platforms to continue to scale to higher bandwidths while reducing a PIC’s footprint by at least 40 percent.”

The ECOC Exhibition 2026 will take place in Málaga, Spain, from 21–23 September 2026.