Tower Semiconductor and NewPhotonics have begun high-volume shipments of laser-integrated optical engine chips for AI infrastructure, the companies said. The shipping NPG102 products support 800G and 1.6T data rates, with 200G-per-lane designs intended for optical connections between computing systems.
NewPhotonics designs the photonic integrated circuits, or PICs, while Tower provides the PH18DA silicon-photonics manufacturing platform. The platform combines indium phosphide components with silicon, integrating lasers, semiconductor optical amplifiers, modulators and photodetectors on a single circuit.
The optical engines support equipment makers’ pluggable transceiver modules and socket-pluggable near-packaged optics. Tower described NewPhotonics as the first partner to bring heterogeneous laser-integrated optical engines on PH18DA into high-volume production.
The companies plan to begin volume shipments of the NPC505 chipset, a separate 6.4T product compliant with the CPX multi-source agreement, in the first half of 2027. That schedule is a forward-looking manufacturing plan. The currently shipping products remain the 800G and 1.6T NPG102 chips.
Tower has also expanded the design tools available for the same manufacturing platform. In August, OpenLight made its photonic process design kit for PH18DA available in Cadence’s electronic design automation software. The kit combines OpenLight’s photonics intellectual property with Tower’s manufacturing process and Cadence’s design environment.
Tower’s manufacturing network includes facilities in Israel, the United States and Japan, as well as a shared 300mm facility with STMicroelectronics in Italy. The foundry supplies process platforms and design support to fabless chip companies.
OpenLight chief executive Adam Carter said customers can design photonic circuits in the environment they already use for advanced integrated-circuit development. Designs created with the kit support fabrication on PH18DA, including active devices such as lasers, modulators and amplifiers. The platform serves optical interconnects, AI infrastructure and sensing applications.
Tower said that design capability supports 400G and 1.6T laser-integrated circuits and joint optimization of photonic and electronic integrated circuits for near-packaged and co-packaged optics. The August design-tool release and September production announcement concern the same foundry platform, but involve different photonics partners.
AI infrastructure operators are ordering networking and memory components alongside accelerators. Google’s custom-silicon agreement with Marvell spans inference accelerators, network interface controllers and memory systems. Google and Blackstone’s Crux AI venture plans to combine TPUs with networking, power and data center operations, targeting its first 500 megawatts of capacity in 2027.
Tower and NewPhotonics will participate in the ECOC optical-communications exhibition in Malaga, Spain, September 21-23. NewPhotonics plans to show both the shipping NPG102 and the forthcoming NPC505 products at the event.
Sources: Tower Semiconductor, Tower Semiconductor
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By the Control Plane Editorial Team