[News] Venturing into Silicon Photonics, AMD Reportedly Seeks Partnerships in Taiwan

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As silicon photonics has become a key technology in the AI era, semiconductor giants, including Intel and TSMC, have joined the battlefield. Now another tech giant has engaged in the war, while U.S. chip giant AMD is reportedly seeking silicon photonics partners in Taiwan, according to local media United Daily News.

According to the report, AMD has reached out to Taiwanese rising stars in the sector, including BE Epitaxy Semiconductor and best Epitaxy Manufacturing Company. The former focuses on the design, research and development of silicon photonics platforms, while the latter possesses MOCVD machines to produce 4-inch and 6-inch epitaxy wafers.

Regarding the rumor, AMD declined to comment. Recently, the AI chip giant announced a USD 4.9 billion acquisition of server manufacturer ZT Systems to strengthen its AI data center infrastructure, with the aim to further enhance its system-level R&D capability. Now it seems that AMD is also eyeing to set foot in the market, as silicon photonics is poised to be a critical technology in the future.

Earlier in July, AMD is said to establish a research and development (R&D) center in Taiwan, which will focus on several advanced technologies, including silicon photonics, artificial intelligence (AI), and heterogeneous integration.

Here’s why the technology matters: As chipmakers keep pushing the boundaries of Moore’s Law, leading to increased transistor density per unit area, signal loss issues inevitably arise during transmission since chips rely on electricity to transmit signals. Silicon photonics technology, on the other hand, by replacing electrical signals with optical signals for high-speed data transmission, successfully overcomes this challenge, achieving higher bandwidth and faster data processing.

On September 3, a consortium of more than 30 companies, including TSMC, announced the establishment of the Silicon Photonics Industry Alliance (SiPhIA) at SEMICON.

According to a previous report by Nikkei, TSMC and its supply chain are accelerating the development of next-generation silicon photonic solutions, with plans to have the technology ready for production within the next three to five years.

AMD’s major rival, NVIDIA, is reportedly collaborating with TSMC to develop optical channel and IC interconnect technologies.

On the other hand, Intel has been developing silicon photonics technology for over 30 years. Since the launch of its silicon photonics platform in 2016, Intel has shipped over 8 million photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and more than 3.2 million integrated on-chip lasers, according to its press release. These products have been adopted by numerous large-scale cloud service providers.

Interestingly enough, Intel has also been actively collaborating with Taiwanese companies in the development of silicon photonics, United Daily News notes. One of its most notable partners is LandMark Optoelectronics, which supplies Intel with critical upstream silicon photonics materials, such as epitaxial layers and related components.

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(Photo credit: AMD)