Mixx Launches SxC™ Connector for High-Radix Scale-Up and Multi-Petabit Connectivity

Mixx Launches SxC™ Connector for High-Radix Scale-Up and Multi-Petabit Connectivity

One fiber connector technology, from the optical engine to the box edge. Live connector demonstration at SEMICON Taiwan. SAN JOSE, Calif. , Aug. 31, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Mixx Technologies, Inc., a US-based venture-backed deep-tech company building co-packaged optics for hyperscale AI infrastructure, today launched the SxC™ Connector, an optical connector for both the front plane and the backplane that terminates up to 24,576 fibers in a single rack unit. Mixx will hold live connector demonstrations at SEMICON Taiwan, booth #I2923, beginning September 2, 2026. Continue Reading sXc™ Expanded Beam Optical Connector Mixx's first product to market is a fiber connector. The industry is moving toward co-packaged optics (CPO) in steps, through near-package optics, CPX, and similar socketed approaches. Each step needs more radix out of the box than existing connectors can deliver, and true CPO won't arrive without it. The connector determines how much optical I/O a box can carry. This layer decides whether optics solves the inference challenge at rack scale or only demonstrates it on a bench. Inference has changed what a scale-up network needs. Mixture-of-experts and agentic workloads require every node to reach every other node with the lowest latency, and that all-to-all connectivity comes down to radix, the number of endpoints a single node can reach. Higher radix reduces the switching layers a packet crosses. Each layer removed takes its switches, transceivers, and cables with it, which means lower latency, lower aggregate power, and fewer components in the failure chain. Scale-out runs on a mature pluggable transceiver ecosystem, and the opportunity in scale-up is to extend that ecosystem rather than replace it. But the arithmetic arrives at the connector. A 400T switch brings thousands of fibers out of a single box, and pluggable transceivers cannot support that density at the front panel. Once optics move inside the box, fiber becomes the next bottleneck, and existing connector families do not easily support the density this generation requires. The inference challenge also means replacing an electrical backplane with an optical one, a requirement the mature ecosystem was never built to meet. One connector technology, inside the box and outside it The SxC™ Connector is the first product in the SxC™ connector family, the system-level connectivity layer of the HBxIO™ platform. It uses the same core connector technology Mixx deploys across the optical signal chain. Mixx builds the optical engine and the connector, so it can optimize the interface from the start rather than negotiating it across multiple vendors. Each connector scales up to 64 fibers, supporting both SMF and PMF in the same form factor depending on customer requirements. The same connector serves the front plane and the backplane, mounted at the faceplate or seated in a bulkhead. The industry workhorse, the MPO, carries 16 in the configuration typically deployed for this application, and the newer, more compact VSFF also usually carries 16. The SxC™ form factor does not change with lane rate or optical power, so the connector supports current and next-generation rates without redesign. By ganging up sixteen connectors within a bulkhead for the backplane, Mixx can terminate 1,024 fibers in less than 800 square millimeters, which is the figure of merit for a connector: fibers per square millimeter. Radix resolves to fiber count, and fiber count resolves to density at the box edge. Twenty-four bulkheads bring a single OCP rack unit to 24,576 fibers. That is 4x the fiber density of MMC-VSFF, the highest-density connector platform qualified for deployment today, and what previously required a four-rack-unit enclosure with MMC connectors now fits in a single rack unit. That density is what makes the next step in CPO integration possible. Advanced packaging and cooling technologies have scaled what can sit inside a box faster than the front panel has scaled what can come o...