MicroLED Technology: Enabling New Reliable Interconnect Form Factors for High-Throughput AI Fabrics

By LK Bhupathi, AVP of Product

With AI workloads continuing to push throughput requirements upward, microLED technology offers a scalable path to higher bandwidth density through increased per-channel data rates and denser implementations. Part one of the blog describes the benefits of microLED technology and its role in scale-out and scale-up networks for AI infrastructure as well as a new category of interconnects: scale-in. Part two looks at how microLED technology addresses the need for new interconnect form factors and solutions.

As AI infrastructure scales, the industry’s shift from traditional pluggable optics toward NearPackage Optics (NPO) and ultimately CoPackaged Optics (CPO) is best understood as an evolutionary progression rather than a sudden replacement. Pluggable optics will continue to play a critical role, particularly where flexibility, serviceability, and reach are paramount. However, as GPUs demand many tens of terabits per second of aggregate throughput for scale-up and scale-in purposes, the electrical distance between the compute or switch silicon and the optical engine drive a tradeoff between serviceability and flexibility for lower power consumption and shorter electrical channels.

NPO represents a pragmatic next step by moving optics closer to the ASIC to shorten electrical paths and improve efficiency while preserving much of today’s optical ecosystem. Over time, as AI scale‑up networks demand even higher bandwidth density and tighter power envelopes, CPO emerges as the long‑term architectural direction—enabling optics to be fully integrated alongside compute and switching silicon.

Credo views these form factors of pluggables, NPO and ultimately CPO as coexisting for years, with adoption driven by workload, topology, and operational requirements, underscoring the importance of a flexible, system‑level connectivity strategy.

Unlike traditional optical solutions designed around pluggable modules, microLED technology offers a compact, energy‑efficient, high‑speed light source that can be integrated much closer to compute and switching silicon. Its small footprint and low‑power operation make it well suited for environments where electrical reach must be minimized, and thermal budgets are tightly constrained—exactly the conditions that define NPO and CPO architectures. By delivering optical bandwidth with chip‑class scalability, microLED technology helps close the gap between electrical and optical domains, supporting the industry’s gradual transition to new form factors while preserving the low latency and massive concurrency required by AI networks.

New System-Level Product Category

By combining Credo’s award-winning connectivity architecture with the microLED expertise gained in the Hyperlume acquisition, Credo is creating a new system-level product category that delivers the reliability and power profile of an AEC with a thinner-gauge optical cable capable of reaching up to 30 meters. This makes active LED cables (ALCs) ideal for row-scale AI networks, where copper reach becomes limiting and traditional pluggable optics introduce reliability, power, and cost disadvantages.

MicroLED interconnects will extend the high reliability of AECs to longer distances and thinner cables. They will also enable new topologies and architectures as scale-up networks expand beyond the rack.

By filling the underserved 10–30 meter “mid-reach” interconnect gap, ALCs can help alleviate power constraints, reduce cabling bulk, improve thermal performance, and unlock more flexible rack-to-rack layouts as AI infrastructure scales.

Beyond ALCs, Credo will apply microLED technology to more integrated form-factors like NPO and CPO to address applications in scale-out and scale-in.

MicroLED is the latest technology in Credo’s comprehensive solutions portfolio which addresses an exceptionally diverse landscape of data center interconnect needs that range from varying mediums, distances, and protocols. By supporting the full connectivity stack required for next‑generation infrastructure, Credo is helping its customers accelerate deployments across the fabrics being built out for AI.