Shenzhen, September 14, 2026 — GIGALIGHT, a global innovator in high-speed optical interconnects, today officially announced its HYBRID 3.2T Semi-DSP heterogeneous optical module technology roadmap and product plan.

At a time when 1.6T is just entering large-scale pilot deployment and 3.2T (equivalent to 16×224G or 32×100G) is approaching rapidly, GIGALIGHT is extending its proven “Semi-DSP + half-linear” HYBRID architecture, already validated at 800G, into a pluggable 3.2T form factor.

The company presents this as a practical evolutionary path that does not depend on new full-DSP capacity, does not force liquid-cooling upgrades, and retains serviceability.

I. Three Major Challenges Facing the 3.2T Era

• Full-DSP 3.2T: Power consumption rises to the 40–50W range, which is difficult for an air-cooled front panel to handle.

• Pure-linear LPO/NPO 3.2T: 224G/lane is extremely sensitive to Host SerDes and PCB losses, while interoperability risks are high for 500m single-mode transmission and multi-vendor deployments.

• LRO single-direction DSP: The chips are niche products, have long lead times, and the ecosystem has not yet matured.

GIGALIGHT’s answer: the HYBRID product architecture

HYBRID = (LRO + LTO) / 2

Among the 8/16 channels, only half use mature duplex DSPs, while the other half use direct linear drive. System-level clock/phase sharing is used to provide reference information to the linear side.

II. Key Technical Elements of the HYBRID 3.2T Solution

• Channel architecture: Of the 16 channels at 224G/lane, 8 retain full-DSP retiming, while the other 8 use direct drive with a linear Driver + TIA.

• DSP reuse: The architecture reuses the mass-produced 1.6T duplex DSP chip.

• Optical engine: Silicon photonics DR8×2, supporting ELS external light sources. GIGALIGHT states that it already holds silicon-photonics patents related to external light sources for 800G/1.6T/3.2T.

• Form factor: OSFP-XD / OSFP224 pluggable modules, compatible with existing switch front panels and air-cooling designs.

• System-level coordination: Through CMIS and proprietary DSP-TAP registers, the reference clock, phase, and FEC margin of the DSP channels are exposed to the host for tuning. The linear channels can therefore “borrow” clock lock rather than having to perform phase acquisition from scratch.

III. Core Benefits Compared with Conventional Full-DSP 3.2T

Dimension	Full-DSP 3.2T	Pure-Linear 3.2T NPO	HYBRID Semi-DSP 3.2T
Typical power consumption	40–50W	18–22W (ASIC-dependent)	28–34W (20–30% reduction)
Latency	High (hundreds of ns)	<1 ns	Approximately halved (similar to LRO)
500m single-mode capability	Strong	Weak / unstable	Achievable (PRE-FEC E-9 to E-10)
DSP chip	Custom full duplex, fully enabled	None	Mature duplex DSP used on only half the channels
BOM cost	Baseline 100%	Lowest	Approximately 20% lower
Host SerDes requirements	Low	Extremely high	Moderate (DSP channels provide fallback)
Air-cooling compatibility	Poor (liquid cooling required)	Good, but difficult to tune	Cold-plate liquid cooling
Evolution toward CPO	Requires redesign	Can migrate directly to CPO	The same “half-system-coordination” concept can be migrated

IV. Four Major Commercial Benefits for AI Cluster

1. Support for pluggable 3.2T architectures with liquid cooling:
3.2T can support enhanced low-density OSFP air-cooled chassis.

2. Reduce dependence on DSP production capacity:
There is no need to compete for new 3.2T DSP capacity; a “half of an existing DSP” can support twice the bandwidth.

3. Open tuning and customer control:
The host system can adjust equalization, gain, and FEC strategies, shortening the joint-debugging cycle for customer-developed switches.

4. Smooth migration toward NPO/CPO:
The same “half-system-coordination” concept can be extended downward to NPO optical engines.

V. Product Roadmap

• ✅ 800G OSFP HYBRID DR8 / 2×DR4: Mature, with prototypes already available.

• ✅ 1.6T OSFP-HRO 2×DR4 HYBRID: Prototypes already available.

• 3.2T OSFP-XD/OSFP HYBRID silicon-photonics pluggable modules: Supported in the roadmap.

• 3.2T pluggable optical modules with external light sources, as well as enhanced 3.2T NPO silicon-photonics engines: Supported in the roadmap.

VI. GIGALIGHT’s View

«“HYBRID technology can provide a better power-consumption balance for 3.2T pluggable optical modules. It can also evolve into an enhanced 3.2T NPO silicon-photonics engine, with guaranteed 500m transmission.”»

— GIGALIGHT Product Strategy Department