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Lightmatter

Photonic computing hardware for AI acceleration

Silicon Packaging Engineer – Intern & New Grad

Winter 2026Updated on 9/25/2026
$40 - $67/hr
Internship
Bachelor's, Master's, PhD
Mountain View, CA, USA
HybridFlexible hybrid workplace model.

About the job

Requirements
  • Pursuing or recently completed a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, or a related field.
  • Hands-on experience through coursework, capstone projects, research labs, or internships.
  • Familiarity with at least one relevant tool, including SolidWorks, ANSYS, ADS, Cadence, Python, MATLAB, or a similar tool.
  • Candidates must have the capacity to comply with federally mandated requirements of U.S. export control laws.
Responsibilities
  • Contribute to high-speed interface analysis involving PCIe, UCIe, and SerDes; power distribution network design and simulation; eye diagrams; jitter; and S-parameters.
  • Contribute to computational fluid dynamics simulation, heat sink and thermal interface material evaluation, liquid cooling, and package-level thermal analysis.
  • Contribute to structural analysis, tolerance stack-up, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, finite element analysis, solder fatigue analysis, and coefficient of thermal expansion mismatch analysis.
  • Contribute to 2.5D and 3D packaging, fiber attach, heterogeneous integration, assembly yield, and reliability activities.

About the company

Lightmatter develops photonic computing hardware to speed up AI workloads using light-based processing. Their photonic systems run AI tasks faster and use about 90% less energy than traditional processors. They target AI and autonomous vehicle workloads and collaborate with universities to advance electro-photonic systems. Revenue comes from hardware sales, software licenses, and partnerships, with a goal of bringing scalable photonic computing to market for faster, energy-efficient AI and AV applications.

Company Size

201-500

Company Stage

Series D

Total Funding

$822M

Headquarters

Mountain View, California

Founded

2017

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • NVIDIA added Lightmatter to NVLink Fusion on May 21, 2026.
  • Open CPX MSA joined Lightmatter on September 17, 2026, legitimizing its architecture.
  • Lightmatter plans Guide DR sampling in Q4 2026 and CPX kits in Q1 2027.

What critics are saying

  • Passage L20 CPX evaluation kits ship in Q1 2027, delaying revenue conversion.
  • Broadcom, Marvell, and NVIDIA can bundle competing interconnects into incumbent platforms.
  • If hyperscalers standardize on electrical or pluggable optics, Lightmatter's CPO thesis collapses.

What makes Lightmatter unique

  • Lightmatter's Passage platform hit 1.6 Tbps per fiber in March 2026.
  • Guide DR reaches 51.2 Tbps per laser module with liquid cooling.
  • vClick Optics and bidirectional CPX cut fiber, connectors, and packaging complexity.

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Benefits

Health Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

Health Savings Account/Flexible Spending Account

Unlimited Paid Time Off

Flexible Work Hours

Remote Work Options

Paid Vacation

Paid Sick Leave

Paid Holidays

Sabbatical Leave

Hybrid Work Options

Stock Options

Company Equity

401(k) Retirement Plan

Wellness Program

Mental Health Support

Gym Membership

Phone/Internet Stipend

Home Office Stipend

Commuter Benefits

Training & Development

Conference Attendance Budget

Professional Development Budget

Family Planning Benefits

Fertility Treatment Support

Adoption Assistance

Childcare Support

Elder Care Support

Relocation Assistance

Employee Referral Bonus

Tuition Reimbursement

Professional Certification Support

Mentorship Program

Meal Benefits

Employee Discounts

Company Social Events

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

↑ 1%

1 year growth

↑ 0%

2 year growth

↑ 1%
PR Newswire
Sep 17th, 2026
Lightmatter unveils first bidirectional CPX optical engine, cutting AI cluster fiber needs by 50%

Lightmatter has joined the Open CPX Multi-Source Agreement and launched the Passage L20 CPX, the industry's first Open CPX module for AI infrastructure with bidirectional optical link technology. The solution delivers 6.4 terabits per second in a single module whilst halving required fibre and connectors. The bidirectional technology combines transmit and receive on a single fibre by assigning each direction its own wavelength of light. In a 512-GPU scale-up pod, this saves more than 200 miles of fibre, reducing the total from approximately 130,000 fibres to 65,000, with around 16,000 fewer connectors. The reduction saves about 15 per cent of total scale-up interconnect network cost. Module evaluation kits are anticipated to ship in the first quarter of 2027.

Yahoo Finance
Jun 3rd, 2026
Lightmatter joins NVIDIA NVLink Fusion ecosystem with photonic interconnects for AI infrastructure

Lightmatter, a photonic computing specialist, has joined NVIDIA's NVLink Fusion ecosystem to deliver high-performance optical connectivity for AI infrastructure. The company will provide Co-Packaged Optics and Near-Packaged Optics products compatible with NVIDIA's optical and SerDes technologies. Lightmatter's bi-directional optical link architecture will create a unified platform for semi-custom AI factories whilst reducing fibre and connector requirements by 50%. The technology enables semi-custom XPUs to connect with NVIDIA switch silicon through Lightmatter's products, creating seamless high-bandwidth connectivity for chips from various suppliers. The partnership combines Lightmatter's Passage CPO solutions with NVIDIA's NVLink Fusion architecture. Analysts view this collaboration as a critical milestone in the maturation of co-packaged optics, providing hyperscalers with a blueprint to overcome traditional I/O bottlenecks and scale AI clusters.

Business Wire
May 21st, 2026
Lightmatter unveils Guide DR: liquid-cooled laser NIC quadruples rack density for AI datacentres

Lightmatter has unveiled Guide DR, a high-density laser network interface card that quadruples rack density compared to conventional external laser small form factor pluggables. The liquid-cooled LNIC relocates the light source from the faceplate into the chassis, solving scaling bottlenecks whilst leveraging existing cooling infrastructure. Built to OCP NIC 3.0 dimensions, a single Guide DR module can support up to 51.2 Tbps of aggregate bandwidth. Four modules in a 1 RU switch tray enable 204.8 Tbps of switching bandwidth, eliminating the need for larger 4 RU chassis with liquid-cooled lasers. The module supplies 200 mW of optical power per fibre across up to 64 fibres, driving 256 lanes at 200G each, with zero front-panel footprint. Guide DR will begin sampling in Q4 2026.

Associated Press
Apr 27th, 2026
Lightmatter hires ex-Google AI director Roy Kim to scale photonic interconnects globally

Lightmatter, a photonic computing company, has appointed Roy Kim as Vice President of Product to lead deployment of its photonic interconnect platform. Kim brings over 15 years of AI infrastructure experience from Google, AMD and NVIDIA. At Google since 2021, Kim served as Director of AI Infrastructure Product Management. He previously led Data Center GPU Product Management at AMD and spent eight years at NVIDIA in AI and high-performance computing roles. At Lightmatter, Kim will oversee product roadmap, management, marketing and strategy. The appointment follows significant product launches, including the Guide light engine in January and the Passage L20 optical engine in March. Lightmatter's technology aims to eliminate data bottlenecks in AI data centres through photonic interconnects.

Business Wire
Mar 11th, 2026
Lightmatter achieves record 1.6 Tbps per fiber with photonic interconnect chiplet

Lightmatter has achieved a record-breaking 1.6 Tbps throughput per fibre with its Passage Co-Packaged Optics chiplet, marking a significant milestone in AI interconnect performance. The technology, developed in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, uses a 16-wavelength DWDM architecture and delivers up to eight times more bandwidth per fibre than existing solutions. The silicon-proven platform combines Lightmatter's photonic engine with Qualcomm Technologies' 112G PAM4 optical SerDes chiplet, addressing interconnect bottlenecks limiting AI model scaling. The architecture reduces power consumption whilst enabling connectivity for next-generation processors and switches, with Passage L-Series photonic engines on track to deliver 100 Tbps and beyond. The record-breaking Passage L-Series photonic interconnects are now available through evaluation kits for lead customer testing.