Marvell Technology launched a major expansion of its coherent interconnect offerings, debuting what it claims is a duo of industry firsts via 1.6 Tb/s (1.6T) ZR/ZR+ pluggables and two-nanometer (nm) digital signal processors (DSPs).

The fabless chip designer unveiled the offerings as a means to scale AI data center connectivity, with Marvell looking to take full advantage of growing industry interest in coherents, most notably through its $3.25 billion acquisition of Photonic Fabric platform creators Celestial AI.

Marvell’s Colorz 1600 is a ZR/ZR+ pluggable and is based on the firm’s new Electra 2nm DSP. Capable of 1.6T coherent optical transmissions, the module can support interconnects ranging from campus links up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) and up to 621 miles (1,000 km) scale-across (or distributed) data centers.

It’s not the first 1.6T pluggable, with the market growing fiercely competitive with the likes of Cisco, Ciena, and Naddod already making inroads, but Marvell touts its module as the first of that speed category to support the OpenZR+ specification, which specifies high-performance, interoperable optical transceivers for multirate Ethernet.

The 1600 also supports in-chip media access control (MACsec) security, a protocol designed to guard against network data breaches by encrypting data traffic as it passes between Ethernet-connected devices.

In addition to supporting high-end 1.6T, Marvell also debuted Libra, a 2nm coherent DSP to power the second generation of its Colorz 800 Gb/s (800G) pluggable.

“Meeting the global needs of AI-driven data centers requires proven, large-scale manufacturing strength, from resource planning to test capacity,” Russ Esmacher, SVP and GM of data center interconnects at Marvell, explained. “We are expanding our pluggable manufacturing capacity to help customers rapidly deploy the latest disruptive technologies to scale their networks.”

Marvell’s Colorz 800 and 1600 pluggables, and the Electra and Libra DSPs powering them, are expected to begin sampling to customers in the second half of 2026.