Semiconductor today

Industrial gas company Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corp (TNSC) of Tokyo, Japan (part of Nippon Sanso Holdings Group) says that a TNSC SR4000HT metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) reactor is being purchased by the University of South Carolina for R&D of advanced ultrawide-bandgap nitride materials and device technology...

POET Technologies Inc of Toronto, Ontario, Canada — designer and developer of the POET Optical Interposer, photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and light sources for the hyperscale data-center, telecom and artificial intelligence (AI) markets — has partnered with Lessengers Inc of Seoul, South Korea — which provides optical components based on its patented direct optical wiring (DOW) technology — to offer a differentiated 800G DR8 transceiver. The transceiver will include POET’s transmit and receive optical engines and Lessenger’s Direct Optical Wiring (DOW) technology for a cost-effective solution for AI and hyperscale data center applications...

Sivers Semiconductors AB of Kista, Sweden (which supplies RF beam-former ICs for SATCOMs and photonic lasers for AI data centers) has announced a strategic partnership with optical communications device maker O-Net Technologies (Group) Co Ltd of Shenzhen, China to produce high-performance external laser sources, a critical component enabling next-generation AI data center architectures...

Indium phosphide (InP)-based optical communications device developer and manufacturer HieFo Corp of Alhambra, CA, USA (formed from management buy-out of the chips business and wafer fabrication operations of Emcore Corp in May 2024) has launched multiple new high-efficiency continuous wave distributed feedback (DFB) InP lasers, designed to address the ever-increasing demands of silicon photonics-based optical transceivers....

Altum RF of Eindhoven, The Netherlands (which designs RF, microwave and millimeter-wave semiconductors) has opened a new and larger office for its Sydney Design Center. This expansion is driven by growing business demands and includes both increased office capacity and a state-of-the-art RF characterization laboratory...

Deposition equipment maker Aixtron SE in Herzogenrath, near Aachen, Germany is to supply a G10-AsP metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) system to Nokia Corp, enabling it to produce 6-inch indium phosphide (InP) wafers. This marks a significant milestone in the evolution of photonic integrated circuits (PICs), says Aixtron...

Lumentum Holdings Inc of San Jose, CA, USA (which designs and makes optical and photonic products for optical networks and lasers for industrial and consumer markets) has announced limited sampling of its new 400/800G ZR+ L-band pluggable transceivers, along with general availability of its 800G ZR+ C-band module. Both products are being showcased in live demonstrations in booth #2119 at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference & Exposition (OFC 2025) in San Francisco (30 March–3 April)...

Lumentum Holdings Inc of San Jose, CA, USA (which designs and makes optical and photonic products for optical networks and lasers for industrial and consumer markets) has announced new advancements in foundational indium phosphide (InP) photonic chip technologies designed to deliver higher bandwidth and more power-efficient connectivity for next-generation AI-driven data centers. Its latest InP innovations — enabling future 400Gbps-per-lane optical links, more efficient 200Gbps-per-lane optical links, and co-packaged optics — are being showcased in live demonstrations and a technical presentation in booth #2119 at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference & Exposition (OFC 2025) in San Francisco (1–3 April)...

Photonic application-specific integrated circuit (PASIC) chip designer and manufacturer OpenLight of Santa Barbara, CA, USA (which launched as an independent company in June 2022, introducing the first open silicon photonics platform with heterogeneously integrated III-V lasers) has announced a new ecosystem partnership with Suzhou TFC Optical Communication Co Ltd (TFC, a provider of optical sub-assembly integrated solutions and advanced optoelectronic package manufacturing services) aimed at advancing the silicon photonics back-end process...

In booth #2119 at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference & Exposition (OFC 2025) in San Francisco (1–3 April), Lumentum Holdings Inc of San Jose, CA, USA (which designs and makes optical and photonic products for optical networks and lasers for industrial and consumer markets) and data infrastructure semiconductor solutions provider Marvell Technology Inc of Santa Clara, CA, USA are giving an industry-first demonstration integrating Marvell 400G/per lane PAM4 technology operating at 225Gbaud with Lumentum’s indium phosphide (InP) monolithically integrated DFB–MZI optical transmitter, highlighting what is claimed to be a milestone in advancing next-generation, high-bandwidth and lower-power-per-bit optics for artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) and cloud infrastructure...

High-power semiconductor laser designer Casela Technologies of Santa Clara, CA, USA has launched the ELSA-16, a pluggable 16-channel External Laser Source (ELS) platform designed to unlock new levels of performance, flexibility and scalability in co-packaged optics (CPO) and silicon photonics-based systems powering AI workloads...

Phlux Technology —which was spun off from the University of Sheffield in 2020 and designs and manufactures 1550nm avalanche photodiode (APD) infrared sensors — has announced a £9m (US$11.7m) Series A funding round, led by BGF (said to be the UK and Ireland’s most active growth capital investor) joined by existing backers including Octopus Ventures, Northern Gritstone, and Foresight...

The Centre for Integrated Semiconductor Materials (CISM) at Swansea University in South Wales has used a newly commissioned AIXTRON close-coupled showerhead (CCS) deposition system to establish the first capability in the UK for growing gallium oxide (Ga2O3) thin films on 4-inch substrates, which have been tested and shown to be very uniform and of extremely high quality, it is claimed...

For coverage of all the key business and technology developments in compound semiconductors and advanced silicon materials and devices over the last month...

Wolfspeed Inc of Durham, NC, USA — which makes silicon carbide (SiC) materials and power semiconductor devices — says that it has received $192.1m in cash tax refunds from the advanced manufacturing tax credit under Section 48D (including $186.5m owed to it for both fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024 taxes, as well as accrued interest). This comprises part of the approximately $1bn total Section 48D cash tax refunds that the firm expects to receive. As of the end of fiscal second-quarter 2025 (to 29 December 2024), Wolfspeed had accrued a total of $865m in Section 48D tax credits. The firm expects to receive more than $600m in cash tax refunds in fiscal 2026...

Japan’s Mazda Motor Corp and Kyoto-based ROHM Co Ltd have commenced joint development of automotive components using gallium nitride (GaN) power semiconductors...

In booth #2119 at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference & Exposition (OFC 2025) in San Francisco (30 March–3 April), Lumentum Holdings Inc of San Jose, CA, USA (which designs and makes optical and photonic products for optical networks and lasers for industrial and consumer markets) is unveiling its latest innovations in optical networking, presenting advances in high-speed data interconnect products and technologies, optical circuit switching (OCS), high-power pump lasers, and next-generation networking technologies, enabling efficient scaling of AI-driven and cloud-scale networking architectures...

In booth #1519 at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference & Exposition (OFC 2025) in San Francisco (1–3 April), materials, networking and laser technology firm Coherent Corp of Saxonburg, PA, USA is demonstrating what it claims is the industry’s first 400Gb/s differential electro-absorption modulated laser (D-EML), representing a significant advance in high-speed optical networking technology for data centers...

Flexible integrated circuit (FlexIC) designer and manufacturer Pragmatic Semiconductor Ltd of Cambridge, UK has launched its latest radio frequency identification (RFID) near-field communication (NFC) product line. NFC Connect is claimed to unlock seamless, item-level intelligence for mass-market products that are traditionally constrained by cost, supply chain and sustainability challenges...

During a visit to Newport Wafer Fab in South Wales — the UK’s largest semiconductor facility — a day after giving her Spring Statement (promising a “new era of security and national renewal” to kickstart economic growth, protect working people and keep Britain safe), the UK Government’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has welcomed the intention of discrete semiconductor and passive electronic component maker Vishay Intertechnology Inc of Malvern, PA, USA to invest £250m in boosting production at its subsidiary Vishay Newport Ltd as part of plans to develop large-scale compound semiconductor manufacturing in the UK, specifically of silicon carbide devices...