Hengtong’s CPO Polarization-Maintaining Fiber Reinforces the New Foundation of AI Computing Interconnection with Sub-Micron Precision

As the AI computing industry undergoes rapid iteration, CPO (Co-Packaged Optics), with its core advantages of low latency, high bandwidth, and low power consumption, has emerged as the core technology for optical interconnection in next-generation AI data centers. As one of the fundamental materials in CPO systems, the precision of polarization-maintaining (PM) fiber directly affects system coupling efficiency and signal stability. Recently, Hengtong Optoelectronics achieved a major breakthrough in its self-developed CPO polarization-maintaining fiber.

As the core transmission medium that preserves the polarization state of optical signals, the process precision of PM fiber is critical to the stable operation of CPO systems. Tolerance control within CPO is extremely demanding—even sub-micron lateral misalignment can lead to significant optical power loss. For a long time, traditional panda-type PM fibers have suffered from issues such as fluctuations in bare fiber diameter and asymmetries in the stress-applying parts (cat-eye structures), making them unable to meet the evolving demands of high-end CPO technology. This has become a common technical bottleneck in the industry. To address this challenge, Hengtong Optoelectronics has focused deeply on core fiber processes, achieving major breakthroughs in fiber dimensional accuracy and stress-part symmetry, thereby enabling the steady advancement of high-end CPO technology.

Leveraging its HPPD (High-Precision PM Fiber Drawing) technology, Hengtong employs precision tension control and an online real-time compensation system to improve bare fiber diameter control accuracy to ±0.1 μm—significantly surpassing conventional process precision. This ultra-high fiber diameter consistency effectively resolves the issue of error amplification in high-density fiber arrays, ensuring fiber positioning accuracy in high-density FAU (Fiber Array Unit) packaging scenarios and coupling efficiency with silicon photonic chips, meeting the stringent assembly requirements of high-end CPO equipment.

Using HPPQ (High-Precision Quartz Processing) technology, Hengtong precisely controls the dimensions and positions of the fiber's "cat-eye" stress-applying parts, thoroughly addressing the industry-wide problem of asymmetric cat-eye structures. The symmetry of the stress-applying parts is controlled to within 0.2 μm, achieving the precise "three-cores-in-line" alignment standard. This technology greatly enhances fiber polarization stability and extinction ratio performance, fundamentally ensuring extremely low crosstalk when external laser light sources are connected to CPO systems, and guaranteeing high-quality, stable transmission of high-speed optical signals.

Hengtong Optoelectronics continues to proactively position itself around next-generation optical interconnection technologies. This breakthrough in PM fiber technology not only provides critical material support for next-generation optical interconnection technologies such as CPO but also demonstrates the independent innovation capability of Chinese enterprises in the field of high-end optical communication materials. Looking ahead, Hengtong Optoelectronics will continue to deepen its core expertise in specialty optical fibers, persistently breaking through technical barriers in high-end optical interconnection, and leveraging its high-precision, high-stability self-developed optical communication materials to continuously support the efficient and high-quality development of global AI computing infrastructure.