SANTA CLARA: Marvell Technology Inc. has acquired Polariton Technologies, a Swiss developer of high-speed, low-power plasmonics-based silicon photonics devices, the company announced Tuesday.
The deal strengthens Marvell’s optical technology portfolio by adding advanced modulation capabilities that support continued scaling of bandwidth, power efficiency and integration for next-generation coherent and optical interconnect platforms, the company said.
As artificial intelligence workloads drive exponential increases in bandwidth demand, data center architectures are evolving to require higher-performance optical interconnects, particularly for scale-across and data center interconnect applications. While the industry is transitioning to 1.6T connectivity, it is already advancing toward 3.2T and beyond, requiring innovation at the device level.
Plasmonics offers significant advantages over traditional silicon photonics by enabling higher density, massively parallel optical links with ultra-low energy per bit, according to Marvell.
Polariton’s technology is designed to address challenges in next-generation coherent and DCI optical interconnects, including ZR and ZR+ applications, enabling ultra-fast, energy-efficient optical signaling in a compact form factor.
“Marvell continues to invest in advanced optical technologies to support the rapid evolution of AI and cloud data center infrastructure,” said Sandeep Bharathi, president of the Data Center Group at Marvell. “The addition of Polariton extends our optical roadmap with differentiated modulation technology and a highly specialized team. This investment reflects our commitment to innovation across multiple technology approaches as we continue to build on our leadership in high-speed connectivity.”
Polariton brings a team with deep expertise in plasmonics, silicon photonics and high-speed optical modulation, enhancing Marvell’s capabilities in advanced photonics.
The acquisition further strengthens Marvell’s end-to-end connectivity portfolio across electro-optics, photonics, switching and custom silicon. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Marvell, based in Santa Clara, is a supplier of data infrastructure semiconductor solutions. Polariton is a designer and manufacturer of high-performance photonic integrated circuits for communication, computing, test and measurement, space and quantum technologies markets.