GlobalFoundries and Marvell are expanding silicon-germanium production in Vermont as AI data centres chew through ever more optical networking capacity.
According to a GlobalFoundries announcement, the pair signed an expanded multi-year agreement on 17 September 2026 to increase capacity for GlobalFoundries’ silicon-germanium, or SiGe, technology at its Burlington facility.
The extra capacity will feed Marvell’s next-generation pluggable optical transceivers, Near-Packaged Optics and Co-packaged Optics.
AI data centres increasingly behave like enormous distributed computers, leaving accelerators rather useless if the interconnects between them cannot shift data quickly enough.
GlobalFoundries said its SiGe technology provides the high-frequency performance, signal integrity and power efficiency needed for advanced optical networking.
Its current technology supports 200G-per-lane optical connectivity, with faster generations planned as AI and cloud data-centre bandwidth requirements continue climbing.
The foundry has manufactured advanced SiGe technology for more than a decade and is combining it with silicon photonics and advanced packaging for NPO and CPO designs.
Marvell vice president of foundry technology Robb Johnson said connectivity was becoming critical as AI systems became larger and more demanding.
“AI is fundamentally changing the way data centres are built, and connectivity is becoming increasingly critical to unlocking the performance of these systems. As the industry moves toward higher-bandwidth optical architectures, including NPO and CPO, Marvell is investing aggressively to lead this transition. Our expanded collaboration with GF will help ensure we have the SiGe technology and manufacturing capacity to support the significant growth we see ahead,” Johnson said.
GlobalFoundries senior vice president of Photonics & RF businesses Shankaran Janardhanan said the technology gave the foundry’s radio-frequency and analogue expertise somewhere useful to go.
“SiGe is where GF’s decades of high-performance radio frequency and analogue leadership translate directly into breakthrough optical performance,” Janardhanan said. “This agreement reinforces our long-standing relationship with Marvell and reflects the critical role SiGe technology plays in enabling high-speed optical networking for AI infrastructure. We will continue investing in our technology roadmap and manufacturing capabilities both in the U.S. and around the world to support our customers’ future growth,” Janardhanan said.
The expanded deal builds on more than a decade of work between the companies and is expected to add significant manufacturing capacity, although neither side disclosed production volumes or financial terms.
