The Growing Chiplet Ecosystem: Collaboration, Innovation, and the Next Wave of UCIe Adoption

In a recent webinar, we had an amazing panel of UCIe member companies - Archana Cheruliyil from Alphawave Semi, Justin Bunnell from Siemens EDA, Manuel Mota from Synopsys, Mayank Bhatnagar from Cadence, and Vishal Chandrasekar from Ayar Labs - moderated by Brian Rea, UCIe Marketing Chair. Together, they explored how UCIe is accelerating the era of chiplet-based design through real-world collaboration, flexibility, and innovation. 

UCIe: Powering Chiplet Innovation

The Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) has quickly established itself amongst industry leaders, including the panelists, as the go to open standard die-to-die interconnect. Its flexibility and forward-looking architecture are giving semiconductor companies the ability to build complex, high-performance systems from smaller, interoperable chiplets.

As Manuel from Synopsys explained, the reason for UCIe’s momentum is its breadth. It doesn’t just cover the data interface but extends into system-level features like manageability, testability, and security. That holistic approach makes it adaptable for the widest range of applications, from AI and high-performance computing (HPC) to automotive and networking.

Collaboration That Ships Silicon

The panelists emphasized one consistent message: collaboration through UCIe isn’t theoretical - it’s happening now. Ayar Labs has committed the electrical side of its optical chiplets to UCIe, ensuring the low latency, high bandwidth, and energy efficiency required for scaling massive GPU networks. Their partnership with Alchip Technologies, which pairs high-performance ASICs with Ayar’s optical engines, is a prime example of UCIe enabling cross-company innovation across process nodes and packaging technologies.

Similarly, Cadence and Intel demonstrated real-world UCIe interoperability across different nodes using both pre-silicon co-simulation and silicon validation. Meanwhile, Siemens EDA joined forces with Ayar Labs and Alphawave Semi to verify interoperability through co-simulation at both the PHY and controller levels. These collaborations demonstrate how UCIe’s well-defined specifications allow partners to develop and accelerate time to market.

Designed for Flexibility and Power Efficiency

As Archana from Alphawave Semi noted, power efficiency has become a defining challenge in modern systems. UCIe’s standardized foundation lets companies focus their R&D on optimizing for performance-per-watt instead of reinventing the interface. With built-in test and debug features, such as loopback, margining, and link training, designers can fine-tune performance and power at the system level without sacrificing compliance or interoperability.

UCIe 3.0 now supports up to 64 GT/s, offering design flexibility across link widths, packaging technologies, and even 3D stacking. Teams can choose between PCIe, CXL, or raw streaming protocols, and easily mix modes to balance latency, power, and bandwidth needs. This kind of adaptability enables both cutting-edge AI systems and cost-sensitive automotive or edge devices to thrive within the same framework.

Real-World Implementations and Use Cases

UCIe’s adoption is growing in data centers, AI accelerators, and high-performance computing.

In HPC and AI, where monolithic designs are often too large to yield efficiently, chiplet architectures built on UCIe allow compute, memory, and I/O to scale seamlessly. In automotive applications, heterogeneous integration is driving adoption, pairing mature analog and RF dies with advanced logic nodes for safer, smarter systems.

Optical I/O is another frontier. By combining UCIe’s electrical standards with optical interconnects, companies like Ayar Labs are building the foundation for ultra-high-bandwidth, energy-efficient connectivity between GPUs, switches, and even extended memory pools.

The Road Ahead for UCIe

Mayank from Cadence summed it up best: UCIe is not a newcomer; it’s a fast-maturing foundation that has already proven itself across multiple generations. In just three years, the standard has evolved from version 1.1 to 3.0, demonstrating it can match the power, performance, and area (PPA) metrics of many custom die-to-die implementations. Each new release brings optional features that widen its reach: from multi-protocol enablement in 2.0 to advanced management and auto-negotiation capabilities in 3.0.

This layered, modular design means UCIe can be as lightweight or as feature rich as needed. It can serve as a simple high-speed pipe for streaming data or a full-stack architecture supporting PCIe, CXL, and proprietary interfaces, all while maintaining a consistent interoperability framework. The result is a universal interconnect standard that scales from experimental startups to top-tier chipmakers.

That combination of industry collaboration, technical maturity, and unmatched versatility is what’s propelling UCIe from an emerging idea to the clear default for die-to-die communication. It’s not just “universal” in name; it’s becoming the backbone of the entire chiplet ecosystem.

Watch the Full Webinar

To hear the complete discussion, including technical deep dives, live interoperability examples, and the panel’s predictions for the next wave of chiplet adoption, watch the full webinar.