U.S. optical semiconductor company GlobalFoundries. Captured from the GlobalFoundries website
The US government, which has entered the race for semiconductor technology dominance, will invest $300 million (about 430 billion won) of its CHIPS Act budget in an optical semiconductor company.
GlobalFoundries, a US semiconductor contract manufacturer (foundry), announced on the 29th (local time) that the US government plans to provide the company with $300 million to strengthen research and development of silicon photonics technology.
Silicon photonics technology, which transmits data using light, is a core foundation for next-generation optical semiconductors. It is drawing attention as communication traffic and power consumption at AI data centers increase, because it can raise the bandwidth of AI systems and lower power consumption.
Earlier, the Trump administration decided to provide $150 million for semiconductor manufacturing equipment and $2 billion for quantum computing from the CHIPS Act budget. The move appears aimed at firmly securing global technology leadership in silicon photonics research, a key future semiconductor technology as well.
Currently, advanced optical packaging supply chains, including silicon photonics and co-packaged optics (CPO), are concentrated outside the United States, such as at Taiwan’s TSMC and Israel’s Tower Semiconductor.
The funding also aims to advance co-packaged optics (CPO) technology. CPO is a technology that maximizes data transmission efficiency by bundling an optical module together with an AI processor on a single substrate.
GlobalFoundries said it aims to raise data transmission speeds to 400 gigabits per second (Gbps) and improve energy efficiency by up to five times compared with the current generation. “GlobalFoundries has built its technology, manufacturing base and ecosystem for more than 10 years to lead this technological transition, and it has a proven manufacturing base that can scale this up ‘within the United States,'” GlobalFoundries CEO Tim Breen stressed.
GlobalFoundries was established from the manufacturing division spun off from US semiconductor company AMD in 2009. It later acquired Singapore’s foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing and IBM’s semiconductor manufacturing business, and listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in 2021. According to market research firm TrendForce, GlobalFoundries held a 3.3% share of the global foundry market in the first quarter of this year, ranking fifth.