Sivers Semiconductors and GlobalFoundries have formed a strategic collaboration to develop silicon photonics solutions targeting the rapidly expanding AI infrastructure market.
Collaboration details
Sivers will integrate its laser arrays into reference designs built on GlobalFoundries’ silicon photonics platform. The partnership addresses multiple optical connectivity architectures, including co-packaged optics (CPO), linear pluggable optics (LPO), and other emerging data-center interconnect standards. Sivers’ laser technology will also be available within GlobalFoundries’ Silicon Photonics Co-packaged Advanced Light Engine (SCALE) platform for next-generation optical sub-assemblies.
GlobalFoundries’ SCALE CPO solution combines integrated photonic devices, coarse and dense wavelength-division multiplexing (CWDM and DWDM), and advanced packaging to improve bandwidth density and system scalability. This integration aims to reduce power consumption while increasing data throughput in hyperscale environments.
Market context
AI workloads and hyperscale data-center architectures are driving demand for higher bandwidth, improved energy efficiency, and scalable optical connectivity. Sivers’ chief revenue officer Raymond Biagan noted that the collaboration positions both companies at the leading edge of silicon photonics innovation. GlobalFoundries’ senior fellow Vikas Gupta emphasized that pairing Sivers’ laser array technology with GF’s silicon photonics and SCALE CPO platforms delivers advanced, scalable optical engine solutions for high-bandwidth co-packaged optics and optical interconnects.
Technical significance
Silicon photonics leverages CMOS manufacturing processes to integrate optical and electronic components on a single chip, enabling faster data transmission with lower power than traditional copper interconnects. CPO reduces signal loss and power consumption by placing optical engines closer to ASICs, while LPO simplifies pluggable modules for cost-effective scaling. Sivers’ laser arrays provide the light source necessary for these architectures, and GlobalFoundries’ foundry ecosystem offers volume production capability across the U.S., Europe, and Singapore.
Outlook
This partnership addresses a critical bottleneck in AI infrastructure: the need for energy-efficient, high-bandwidth optical interconnects to support massive data movement between accelerators and memory. As hyperscalers push toward exascale computing, integrated silicon photonics solutions from Sivers and GlobalFoundries could become foundational for next-generation data-center networks, enabling the performance and scalability required for sustained AI workload growth.
