PHIX partners with Taiwan trio to advance high-speed optical engines

07 Nov 2025

Plus: Sivers Semi partners with Poet; and photonic chip foundry CCRAFT gets Innosuisse support.

PHIX, Ligitek, Liverage, and ITRI have partnered to develop novel, energy-efficient optical transceivers to meet global challenges in data connectivity. The partners say that the agreement on developing high-speed optical engines “strengthens Netherlands-Taiwan collaboration and prepares new semiconductor packaging innovations for scalable volume manufacturing.”

The rapid growth of internet-based services and global data traffic is driving up demand for high-speed and energy-efficient optical transceivers. In response, the named partners will work together to advance the hybrid integration and packaging of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for optical transceiver development.

PHIX, based in the Netherlands, develops photonics packaging solutions. Ligitek, Liverage, and ITRI are located in Taiwan. Ligitek provides optoelectronic components and system integration solutions. Liverage makes advanced optical transceiver systems for the optical communication industry. ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) is a technology research institute providing system-level validation and integrated photonics development platforms.

Data centers alone consumed approximately 450 TWh of electricity in 2022 – equivalent to the total annual energy usage of the United Kingdom. But high-speed optical transceivers are essential for delivering reliable, low-latency, and energy-efficient data transmission.

By leveraging hybrid integration, the partners are developing novel solutions that combine photonic and electronic ICs on a single substrate, reducing power consumption per bit and improving overall system efficiency. The global optical transceiver market, which is expected to growth to $27.25 billion by 2030, according the PHIX announcement, opening up significant commercial opportunities.

Milan Milosevic, Director of Research & Innovation at PHIX, commented, “Collaborating with Ligitek, Liverage, and ITRI enables PHIX to contribute our packaging expertise to an international partnership that strengthens ties between the Netherlands and Taiwan photonics ecosystems. Together we are advancing hybrid integration technologies to deliver energy efficient, high speed optical transceivers for the data networks of the future.”

Sivers Semiconductors partners with POET Technologies

Photonics and wireless technologies systems developer Sivers Semiconductors, based in Kista, Sweden, has announced a strategic partnership with Toronto, Canada-based Poet Technologies, which design and implements integrated optical engines and light sources for artificial intelligence networks.

Siver’s announcement states, “As AI datacenter connectivity scales from 800 Gbps toward 6.4 Tbps and beyond, traditional pluggables based on externally modulated lasers are reaching their performance limits. In parallel, next-generation GPU architectures are driving demand for co-packaged optics [CPO] supported by External Light Sources.”

Vickram Vathulya, CEO of Sivers, commented, “The resources needed to enable future high-speed connectivity have shifted the balance toward innovative technologies like CW lasers, driving the evolution of pluggables, as well as the revolution of CPO. Partnering with Poet strengthens our technical roadmap and integration capabilities, delivering plug-and-play light-engine sub-systems.”

Sivers’ latest collaboration combines the company’s distributed feedback laser technology with Poet’s Optical Interposer platform to deliver scalable light-engine solutions that are deployable for future generations of pluggable transceivers and enabling external light sources for CPO-based solutions.

Dr. Suresh Venkatesan, Chairman & CEO of Poet, said, “By pairing our Optical Interposer platform with Sivers’ lasers, we can deliver highly integrated, scalable, and energy-efficient light sources to meet the connectivity demands of the rapidly evolving AI datacenter market.”

Prototypes are expected to be demonstrated to customers in the first half of 2026, with production readiness targeted for the end of 2026.

CCRAFT gains Innosuisse support

Swiss-based photonic chip foundry CCRAFT, an independent “pure-play” foundry dedicated to thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonic integrated circuits, has announced a CHF 2.5 million (€ 2.7 million) project supported by Innosuisse, the Swiss Innovation Agency.

Over the next two years, the project will accelerate CCRAFT’s in-house design and manufacturing capabilities, advancing its TFLN platform to meet the growing performance and reliability demands of AI data centers.

TFLN has emerged as a key enabler for ultra-high-speed, low-power optical links, capable of supporting data modules beyond 1.6 Tbit/s while consuming less than 1 pJ/bit. Yet, a major bottleneck remains: no industrial-grade foundry has been able to produce TFLN chips at the scale required by hyperscale data centers. CCRAFT contends that it is “closing this gap”.

The firm developed its proprietary TFLN technology within the industrial facilities of the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), establishing a production-ready process for wafer-scale manufacturing.

Hamed Sattari, CEO of CCRAFT, said, “Operating on a 150 mm manufacturing line within CSEM’s facility, we already deliver chips to customers at industrial scale and are advancing toward multi-million-chip annual capacity. The transition to 200 mm wafers will further boost throughput and efficiency as we expand production.”