UMC & SILITH Mass-Produce 12-inch Silicon Photonics Wafers for AI Data Centers

ITF World 2026: The Semiconductor Industry Enters a New Systems Era - EE Times: ... Big Data Designline. ITF World 2026: The Semiconductor Industry Enters a New Systems Era. AI, heterogeneous integration, silicon photonics, chiplets ... #bigdata #cdo #cto

At EETimes, Sicoya together with our colleagues at STMicroelectronics share a few thoughts about the challenges and directions for volume scaling of silicon photonics: https://lnkd.in/dmYbYGnm

AI may be creating the market silicon photonics has been waiting for—but optical performance alone will not win it. In my latest article for EE Times | Electronic Engineering Times, I examine how surging bandwidth demands inside AI data centers are pushing silicon photonics toward high-volume, 300-mm manufacturing—and making packaging, testing, and electrical integration just as important as the photonic devices themselves. Sylvie Gellida, general manager of STMicroelectronics’ Optical and RF Foundry Division, explains how ST is scaling its PIC100 platform and building a broader optical-interconnect ecosystem. Hanjo Rhee, CTO and managing director at Sicoya GmbH, discusses the company’s 1.6T demonstration and why die stacking and scalable packaging will be critical as optics move closer to switches and GPUs. Steeve Bourdon #SiliconPhotonics #Photonics #AIInfrastructure #AIDataCenters #OpticalInterconnects #AdvancedPackaging #Semiconductors

AI is reshaping data centers and shining a spotlight on a critical challenge: how to move massive amounts of data quickly and efficiently. As highlighted by EE Times, silicon photonics is rapidly becoming a cornerstone technology for next-gen AI infrastructure. The industry's next challenge is not only achieving higher optical performance, but scaling manufacturing and integration to meet the demands of hyperscale AI deployments. STMicroelectronics is proud to be contributing to this transformation with the PIC100 silicon photonics platform, leveraging 300 mm manufacturing, advanced packaging, and a broad portfolio of complementary technologies to help enable the future of AI networking. Exciting times ahead for photonics, semiconductors, and AI infrastructure! #AI #SiliconPhotonics #DataCenters #OpticalNetworking #Semiconductors #STMicroelectronics #AIfactories

US to award $300 million to GlobalFoundries to boost silicon photonics R&D for AI data centers #GlobalFoundries #siliconphotonics #semiconductors #technologynews Read More: https://lnkd.in/gr2gK_Zu

sn-news: #semiconductors #eu #electronics #processors #riscv #ai #ml Recent developments highlight significant shifts in semiconductor architecture and the foundational elements driving future computing paradigms: * The "State of the Union" keynote highlighted RISC-V's increasing prominence and adoption as an open-standard instruction set architecture across diverse computing applications, suggesting its growing inevitability in the processor landscape (https://lnkd.in/ek2Typ6U). * Insights from ITF World 2026 suggest the semiconductor industry is transitioning into a new systems era, characterised by the convergence of AI, heterogeneous integration, silicon photonics, chiplets, and quantum computing for next-generation complex systems (https://lnkd.in/eZUpbDsH). These news points to a dynamic evolution in foundational computing technologies, from open architectures like RISC-V to system-level integration. Strategic investment in these areas is paramount for maintaining technological leadership and securing future capabilities.

One of the biggest shifts we've noticed over the past 12 months is just how quickly conversations around AI infrastructure and optical interconnects have accelerated. As AI clusters continue to scale, bandwidth, power efficiency and latency are becoming just as important as compute itself. That's driving innovation across: • Silicon photonics • Optical transceivers • Optical engines • Co-packaged optics (CPO) • High-speed laser technologies The next generation of AI infrastructure will be built through collaboration between semiconductor manufacturers, photonics innovators, equipment suppliers, foundries, software providers and the organisations deploying these technologies at scale. Microelectronics UK will be bringing together organisations from right across that ecosystem this September. Companies already involved include Hamamatsu Corporation, KLA, Oxford Instruments GmbH, CORNERSTONE, Eblana Photonics Ltd, Photon Force, Siemens EDA (Siemens Digital Industries Software), Synopsys Inc, Photodigm, Helia Photonics Ltd, Photronics and Cadence. They will be joined by visitors from the likes of Cisco, IQE, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Meta, Nokia, Ciena, Marvell Technology and Infineon Technologies, alongside speakers from BAE Systems, Airbus Defence and Space, BT Group, Intel, Arm, the University of Southampton and many of the UK's leading research institutions. These are exactly the kinds of conversations that will shape the future of AI networking, optical communications and next-generation data centre infrastructure. Really looking forward to seeing those conversations unfold in London this September. #Photonics #Semiconductors #SiliconPhotonics #AIInfrastructure #OpticalNetworking #DataCentres #Microelectronics #MicroelectronicsUK

GlobalFoundries is doubling down on the future of AI infrastructure. The chipmaker has signed a letter of intent for a proposed US$300 million CHIPS R&D award to accelerate next-generation silicon photonics, advanced packaging and optical interconnect technologies in the United States. Backed by support from leading technology companies, the initiative aims to remove networking bottlenecks and improve the speed and energy efficiency of tomorrow's AI data centres. https://lnkd.in/ep6TTa3K

GlobalFoundries has secured a $300 million CHIPS research award to accelerate silicon photonics and co-packaged optics, targeting the copper interconnects that bottleneck data movement inside AI clusters. The funding builds on the company's SCALE platform and previous manufacturing grants, positioning optical interconnects as a critical enabler for the bandwidth and energy efficiency demands of next-generation AI infrastructure. Read the full article for more on GlobalFoundries' silicon photonics strategy: https://buff.ly/eISaexG #CHIPSAct #SiliconPhotonics #AgenticAI #Semiconductors

Jason Zhang, Chief Technology Officer of SiLith, said: “AI is driving an unprecedented demand for optical bandwidth, making silicon photonics a foundational technology for future data centre infrastructure. At SILITH, we are building a scalable silicon photonics platform that spans pluggable optics, co-packaged optics (CPO), and future optical I/O architectures. Together with UMC, we are bringing together leading-edge silicon photonics innovation and high-volume 12-inch manufacturing to deliver the performance, scalability, and cost efficiency required for the next generation of AI networks.” #SILITH #UMC #SiliconPhotonics #PhotonicChips #Semiconductor #AIInfrastructure #OpticalNetworking #DataCenters #ChipInnovation #SemiconLeadersAsia https://lnkd.in/d3i8RMnq