AvicenaTech raises 25 million dollars Series A to develop high-capacity microLED-based optical interconnects.

AvicenaTech Corp., the leader in microLED-based chip-to-chip interconnects, has secured $25M in Series A funding from Samsung Catalyst Fund, Cerberus Capital Management, Clear Ventures, and Micron Ventures. The investment will support the development of products based on Avicena's breakthrough photonic I/O solution. Marco Chisari, EVP of Samsung Electronics and Head of the Samsung Semiconductor Innovation Center, stated that "Avicena technology can be transformational in unlocking compute-to-memory chip-to-chip high-speed interconnects" and "can be central to supporting future disaggregated architectures and distributed high-performance computing (HPC) systems."

Avicena's LightBundleTM I/O solution addresses critical challenges in modern computing by eliminating bottlenecks of copper links triggered by power consumption, latency, reach and bandwidth density. The groundbreaking technology is based on arrays of GaN micro-emitters that leverage the microLED display ecosystem and can be integrated onto any high-performance CMOS IC, enabling high volume, low-cost production of highly optimized microLED arrays. This advancement promises to dramatically improve system performance across artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), cloud computing, next generation cellular radio, remote sensing, and aerospace applications.

Amir Salek, Senior Managing Director at Cerberus Capital Management and former Head of Silicon for Google Infrastructure and Cloud, expressed enthusiasm for the investment, stating that "Avicena has a highly differentiated technology addressing one of the main challenges in modern computer architecture" and that "The technology offered by Avicena meets the needs for scaling future HPC and cloud compute networks and covers applications in conventional datacenter and 5G cellular networking." Similarly, Gayathri Radhakrishnan, Senior Director at Micron Ventures, noted that "Avicena's differentiated interconnect technology promises to enable next-generation high-performance processor and memory clusters" and represents "a strategic investment opportunity for Micron Technology to support innovation in HPC architectures with our partners and customers."

Bardia Pezeshki, Founder and CEO of Avicena, said the company is "excited about closing our Series A funding with a distinguished group of existing and new investors" and that the funds will be used to "scale our team and build initial products for our growing family of partners and customers." Avicena, located in Mountain View, CA, develops ultra-low energy optical links based on microLEDs, with applications including chip-to-chip interconnects in HPC, AI/ML, and memory disaggregation, as well as next generation links in sensors, 5G wireless and aerospace. The company describes its technology as "a key building block in the evolution of new networking and computing architectures that will reduce the energy impact on our planet."