UMC Expands Silicon Photonics Capabilities with imec’s iSiPP300 Technology

United Microelectronics Corporation, a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced a licensing agreement with imec, a world-leading research and innovation hub in advanced semiconductor technologies, for the transfer of imec’s iSiPP300 silicon photonics process, featuring co-packaged optics (CPO) compatibility, to accelerate UMC’s silicon photonics roadmap. The licensed technology will enable UMC to bring a 12-inch silicon photonics platform to market targeting next-generation connectivity.

With copper interconnects facing limitations amid growing AI data workloads, silicon photonics – using light to transmit data - is developing rapidly to support the ultra-high bandwidth, low latency, and energy-efficient requirements for data centers, high performance computing, and networking infrastructure. Tapping into this high-growth market, UMC will integrate imec’s proven 12-inch silicon photonics process technology with its own expertise in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer processing and leverage prior experience in 8-inch silicon photonics production to provide customers with a highly scalable photonic IC (PIC) platform.

GC Hung, UMC Senior Vice President, said: “We are pleased to license state-of-the-art silicon photonics process technology from imec, which will enable UMC to accelerate the readiness of our photonic platform on 12-inch wafers. UMC is working with several new customers to deliver PIC chips on this new platform for optical transceiver applications, with risk production slated for 2026 and 2027. Furthermore, combined with our diverse advanced packaging technologies, UMC is well positioned to extend our offerings going forward as system architectures evolve toward greater integration – such as co-packaged optics and optical I/O - to achieve high-bandwidth, energy-efficient, and highly scalable optical interconnects for both intra- and inter-data center communications.”

Philippe Absil, Vice-President of IC-Link by imec, said: “Over the past decade, imec has shown that advanced CMOS processing on 12-inch wafers for silicon photonics can deliver significant performance gains. Our iSiPP300 platform features very compact and energy-efficient devices, including microring-based filters and modulators, as well as GeSi electro-absorption modulators (EAMs), complemented with diverse low-loss fiber interfaces and 3D packaging modules. IC-Link by imec works closely with the semiconductor industry to ensure that the most advanced technologies are available for product manufacturing, and this agreement with UMC is a demonstration of our collaborative approach, enabling us to bring cutting-edge silicon photonics solutions to a broader market and accelerate adoption in next-generation compute systems.”