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11 Mar 2026
Chip giant plans to more than quadruple capacity for 'PIC 100' process by next year.
STMicroelectronics says that its “PIC100” silicon photonics technology - unveiled just over a year ago - will now enter mass production for optical interconnects in data centers and AI computing clusters.
Fabricated on full-size 300 mm-diameter silicon wafers at the firm’s facility in Grenoble, France, the approach is based around edge-coupled Mach-Zehnder modulation, which ST says gives a better match between the fiber mode and the on-chip silicon nitride waveguide.
“We anticipate quadrupling our production by 2027 to meet the massive demand for silicon photonics technology that supports higher bandwidth and energy efficiency for hyperscalers’ AI workloads,” announced the company, which developed the approach with key customer Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Fabio Gualandris, president of ST’s “Quality, Manufacturing & Technology” business unit, added: “Following the announcement of its new silicon photonics technology in February 2025, ST is now entering high-volume production for leading hyperscalers.
“The combination of our technology platform and the superior scale of our 300 mm manufacturing lines gives us a unique competitive advantage to support the AI infrastructure super-cycle. This fast expansion is fully underpinned by customers’ long-term capacity reservation commitments.”
CPO contribution
ST cites figures from optical communications analyst company LightCounting suggesting that the market for data center pluggable optics surged to $15.5 billion in 2025, with compound annual growth of 17 per cent expected to drive that total beyond $34 billion by the end of the decade.
LightCounting CEO Vladimir Kozlov adds that, by then, the emerging market for co-packaged optics (CPO) will contribute more than $9 billion in revenue.
“Over the same period, the share of transceivers incorporating silicon photonics modulators is projected to increase from 43 per cent in 2025 to 76 per cent by 2030,” he said in ST’s release.
“ST’s leading silicon photonics platform, coupled with its aggressive capacity expansion plan, illustrates its capabilities to provide hyperscalers with secure, long-term supply, predictable quality, and manufacturing resilience.”
ST is set to showcase the PIC100 platform at next week’s Optical Fiber Conference (OFC) event in Los Angeles, while also introducing a new through-silicon via (TSV) feature that promises to further increase optical connectivity density, module integration, and system-level thermal efficiency.
“The PIC100 TSV platform is designed to support future generations of near-packaged optics (NPO) and co-packaged optics (CPO), aligning with hyperscalers’ long-term migration paths toward deeper optical–electronic integration for scale up,” ST announced.
“[We] are now unveiling a concrete PIC100-TSV technology roadmap. By using ultra-short vertical electrical connections, ST can support a much denser module and support near- and co-packaged optics. It will also enable us to create technologies capable of addressing 400 Gb/s per lane.”
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