SAN JOSE, Calif. – September 04, 2026 -- Mixx Technologies, Inc. has launched the SxCTM Connector, an optical connector capable of terminating up to 24,576 fibers in a single rack unit, a density the company says is four times greater than MMC-VSFF, the highest-density connector platform currently qualified for deployment.
Connector density becomes the bottleneck for co-packaged optics deployment
Mixx, a venture-backed deep-tech firm building co-packaged optics (CPO) for hyperscale AI infrastructure, said existing connector families cannot support the fiber density that next-generation inference workloads require. A 400T switch brings thousands of fibers out of a single box, exceeding what pluggable transceivers can support at the front panel. Mixture-of-experts and agentic AI workloads demand high radix — the number of endpoints a single node can reach — to minimize latency and reduce switching layers, transceivers, and cables.
Each connector packs 64 fibers, ganging into 1,024 fibers per bulkhead
The SxCTM Connector scales to 64 fibers per unit, supporting both single-mode (SMF) and polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF) in the same form factor. By comparison, the industry-standard MPO typically carries 16 fibers in this application, as does the newer VSFF format. Ganging 16 SxC connectors within a bulkhead terminates 1,024 fibers in under 800 square millimeters. Twenty-four such bulkheads bring a single OCP rack unit to 24,576 fibers — a configuration that previously required a four-rack-unit enclosure using MMC connectors.
Same connector technology spans optical engine, laser source, backplane and front panel
Mixx said the SxCTM Connector is the first product in its SxC family, positioned as the system-level connectivity layer of its HBxIOTM platform. The company builds both the optical engine and the connector, using one core connector technology across the optical signal chain, the external laser source, the backplane, and the front panel. The connector's ferrule is made of glass rather than the plastic used in most existing connectors, allowing it to handle optical power levels required by remote laser architectures and future multi-wavelength signals.
Wafer-scale manufacturing process replaces serial ferrule assembly
Conventional expanded-beam ferrules are assembled in series — placing fibers individually, dispensing epoxy, polishing, then actively aligning a lens — which limits throughput and yield. Mixx instead forms optical structures in a full wafer-scale integrated process, enabling two-dimensional fiber placement for higher density and lower loss. The company is also automating cable assembly, historically a manual industry step, through robotic fiber assembly and automated visual inspection, and has built passive fiber attach into the connector to eliminate the active-alignment step between lens and fiber.
Mixx joins EBO MSA as first expanded-beam connector specification develops
Mixx is a member of the Expanded Beam Optics Multi-Source Agreement (EBO MSA), which is standardizing expanded-beam optical connectors; the group's first connector specification is now in development.
"Every era of the data center has had a connector that carried it," said Vivek Raghuraman, CEO of Mixx Technologies. "MPO carried one generation, and VSFF carried the next... What Mixx has built is not a denser version of the last connector. It is one ferrule technology that terminates the signal chain at the package, at the laser, at the backplane, and at the front panel, so the connectivity problem gets solved once instead of four times."
Live connector demonstrations begin September 2 at SEMICON Taiwan
Mixx will demonstrate the SxCTM Connector at SEMICON Taiwan, booth #I2923, starting September 2, 2026, allowing attendees to seat and unseat a fully populated bulkhead by hand and observe the link activate on each cycle.