Addressing challenges and embracing advances with photonic package design

By Dr Larry Zu, CEO

January 12, 2026

Traditional semiconductor packaging is struggling to meet the complex demands of AI and next-generation devices.

Copper interconnects cannot deliver the high-performance requirements of modern systems, especially with the rapid expansion of datacentre infrastructure. Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) offer an alternative but there are challenges to be overcome and advances in photonic package design need to be adopted to enable the electronics of the future.

Copper interconnects are not effective when the signal travelling distance is longer than a few metres due to the excessive insertion loss of a copper cable. Therefore, system engineers are moving toward optical integration at the package level.

Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) removes the long copper trace between the switch and the optical module, replacing it with short, high-integrity connections between ASIC and optics. However, designing photonic packages, especially for integrated photonic circuits or photonic chips, presents a range of technical and practical challenges. These stem from the precision required for optical alignment and issues related to thermal management, signal integrity, power consumption, testing and scalability.

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