Avicena, a developer of ultra-low power high-density micro-LED-based interconnects, has raised $65 million in series B funding, bringing the total capital raised to $120 million. The company plans to use the funds to scale up its team and ramp production of its first product. Avicena’s LightBundle solution is a scalable chiplet interconnect for extending high bandwidth memory modules and die-to-die connections from GPUs. The technology is based on arrays of gallium nitride (GaN) micro-LEDs that leverage the large display ecosystem and can be integrated directly onto any high-performance CMOS integrated circuit. The micro-LED transmit arrays are coupled into multi-fiber cables which connect to matching arrays of integrated silicon detectors, enabling optical interconnects which provide superior performance, reliability and cost compared to laser-based solutions, according to the company. Avicena’s LightBundle chiplet platform for AI and data center architecture. The chiplet-based modular transceiver contains integrated micro-LED and photodiode arrays that are connected to other LightBundle transceiver chiplets via multicore fiber bundles. Courtesy of Avicena. “Since high speed electrical interconnects have fundamental reach limitations, and laser-based optical links are too power hungry, micro-LED-based interconnects like Avicena’s LightBundle represent a very promising solution for low power links in future memory fabrics,” said Rene Do, senior director of venture investment at SK hynix. The funding round was led by Tiger Global with participation from new and existing investors including Maverick Silicon, Prosperity7 Ventures, Venture Tech Alliance, SK hynix, Cerberus Capital Management, Hitachi Ventures and Lam Research. Avicena entered a partnership last month with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to optimize photodetector arrays for LightBundle. And in 2023, the company partnered with ams OSRAM to develop high-volume manufacturing of GaN micro-LED arrays for LightBundle. Additionally, Avicena acquired a micro-LED fabrication facility and associated personnel from quantum dot technology Nanosys in 2022. The acquired facilities include epitaxy, wafer processing, and lift-off and transfer tools to post-process silicon integrated circuits with optical interfaces.