Specifications
Product
Credo Bluebird 1.6T optical / AEC DSP
Function
Retiming DSP for 1.6T active electrical cables and pluggable optics
Aggregate Throughput
1.6 Tb/s
Lane Rate
200 Gb/s PAM4 class
Production Status
Ramped September 2025
Platform Design Wins
NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL144 and Kyber Ultra NVL576 AEC links
Product Class
Active Electrical Cable (AEC) engine — copper at 1.6T with retiming
Companion Silicon
Credo Blue Heron 224G multiprotocol retimer (UALink / ESUN / Ethernet)
Vendor Focus
AECs, optical DSPs and SerDes IP
Advantage Over Optics
Copper AEC at 1.6T avoids optical module power and cost at short reach
Advantage Over Passive
Retiming extends copper reach well beyond passive DAC limits
Management
Module and cable-side diagnostics via CMIS-class interfaces
Ecosystem
Credo AEC and optical DSP portfolio for AI factory fabrics
Application
NIC-to-switch and switch-to-switch links inside the rack and row
Why It Matters
AEC+retimer links let 1.6T fabrics stay on copper where optics are overkill
Availability
In production — quote for allocation
Overview
Credo's Bluebird is the 1.6T retiming engine that made active electrical cables a first-class option at the top of the AI fabric. It ramped in September 2025 and has since been designed into NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL144 and Kyber Ultra NVL576 class platforms, where AECs carry the short, high-density links that would otherwise need 1.6T optical modules.
The engineering case is straightforward. Passive DAC runs out of signal budget well before 1.6T over the distances a rack actually needs; a retimed AEC restores margin and keeps the link on copper, avoiding the power draw, thermal load and cost of an optical module at both ends. For AI racks where hundreds of short links exist per rack, that difference dominates the rack power budget.
Credo pairs Bluebird with Blue Heron, a 224G multiprotocol retimer that supports UALink, ESUN and Ethernet simultaneously — a sign that the retimer layer is becoming the place where protocol flexibility lives. QS Compute supplies Credo-based AEC and retimer solutions alongside the NVIDIA first-party OSFP224 optics for mixed copper/optical fabrics.
Key Benefits
1.6T on copper avoids optical module power and cost on short rack-scale links. Retiming extends reach far beyond passive DAC limits, so cabling topology is not dictated by signal integrity. Proven at platform level — designed into Vera Rubin NVL144 and Kyber Ultra NVL576 — so it is not an unqualified part.
Applications
NIC-to-switch links inside AI racks; switch-to-switch spine attachments at row scale; dense 1.6T fabrics where the copper/optical crossover point favours AEC; and retrofit of passive DAC links that will not close at 1.6T.
Request a Quote — CREDO BLUEBIRD 1.6T OPTICAL DSP — RETIMED ENGINE FOR AI FABRIC AECS
QS Compute — global B2B supply of AI computing hardware, edge AI systems and accelerators. Volume pricing, 15-day sample lead time.
Get Your Quote →