Tower Semiconductor and NewPhotonics have begun volume shipments of laser-integrated optical engines aimed at feeding increasingly bandwidth-hungry AI data centres.
According to Tower Semiconductor the companies said the photonic integrated circuits, or PICs, are shipping for 800G and 1.6T products used in scale-out and scale-up AI interconnects.
The hardware covers FRO, LRO and LPO pluggable transceiver modules, Extra-Dense Packaged Optics and Near-Packaged Optics socket-pluggable applications.
It is built using Tower Semiconductor’s PH18DA silicon photonics platform, which combines indium phosphide components with silicon photonics. That allows lasers, semiconductor optical amplifiers, modulators and photodetectors to be integrated on a single photonic chip rather than assembled from a small zoo of separate parts.
NewPhotonics’ NPG102 PICs support 800G and 1.6T connections using 200G-per-lane designs and heterogeneously integrated lasers.
The companies reckon the monolithic approach improves power efficiency, bandwidth density and manufacturing consistency while reducing complexity and production variability.
For AI data centres, those details are becoming less academic as enormous accelerator clusters increasingly depend on optical links to move data without turning interconnect power consumption into another expensive furnace. NewPhotonics’ CPX-MSA-compliant NPC505 chipset targets 6.4T Near-Packaged Optics and is scheduled to enter volume production in the first half of 2027.
NewPhotonics senior vice president and general manager Doron Tal said scaling optical connectivity was becoming essential as AI infrastructure grew.
“The next phase of AI infrastructure demands optical connectivity that scales in both production and performance. With Tower, we are translating laser-integrated photonics into a practical choice and volume availability. By combining our optical chip design with their manufacturing platform, we are first to bring higher-bandwidth, energy-efficient, highly integrated systems to the OEM customer and data centre market,” he said.
Tower Semiconductor vice president and general manager of its RF business unit Dr Ed Preisler said NewPhotonics was the first company to take heterogeneously integrated laser optical engines on PH18DA into high-volume production.
“We are excited to see our vision of integrating lasers with high-performance photonic integrated circuits come to fruition through scale-ready solutions optimised for FRO/LRO and NPO architectures,” Preisler said. “NewPhotonics is a valued partner and the first to bring heterogenous laser-integrated optical engines on the PH18DA platform into high-volume production, marking an important milestone in scaling optical connectivity for next-generation AI infrastructure,” Preisler said.
Tower’s PH18DA process is intended for high-density photonic integration and supports indium phosphide lasers alongside semiconductor optical amplifiers, modulators and detectors. The companies will show the NPG102 and NPC505 products at ECOC 2026 in Malaga from 21 to 23 September 2026.
