Two of the sector's big themes - chiplet bridges and silicon photonics - collide in this grant. Intel's composite bridge wired chiplets electrically; Celestial AI's 2023 grant claims a bridge that wires them optically, sending data between dies as light.
The grant US11835777B2, "Optical multi-die interconnect bridge (OMIB)" (issued December 5, 2023; Celestial AI Inc.; CPC G02B 6/4295 optical-fiber/waveguide coupling, G02B 6/428, G02F 1/0157 optical modulation), claims an optical bridge for multi-die interconnect. The G02B 6 and G02F optical codes confirm this is photonic, not electrical.
Why put optics in the bridge? The die-to-die link is exactly where bandwidth demand is highest and electrical signaling struggles most as data rates climb. Carrying it optically promises very high bandwidth at low energy per bit over the short hop between chiplets - applying the photonics advantage at the package level rather than the datacenter level.
The challenge, and where the claim's scope sits, is integrating waveguides and modulators into a bridge that still mechanically and thermally couples the chiplets. You are asking a single small structure to do both an optical and a packaging job, which is precisely the hard, patentable part.
The assignee tells you about the market. Celestial AI is a photonics-focused startup, and seeing a startup hold OMIB IP shows this corner of the thicket is contested by specialists, not only the giants. Optical packaging is open enough that focused players can stake meaningful claims.
For the reader, the synthesis is the point: the chiplet bridge and silicon photonics are converging. Celestial AI's 2023 grant is an early, granted claim on that convergence - a die-to-die bridge that moves photons, aimed squarely at the bandwidth ceiling that electrical bridges eventually hit.