OpenLight raises $34m to scale integrated photonics
Synopsys subsidiary OpenLight, a developer of photonic ASIC (PASIC) chip design and manufacturing based on heterogeneous integration, has raised $34M in Series A financing.
The round was co-led by Xora Innovation and Capricorn Investment Group. Other participants include Mayfield; Juniper Networks, now part of HPE; Lam Capital, the corporate venture arm of Lam Research Corporation; New Legacy Ventures; and K2 Access.
This round of financing completes OpenLight's transition to a venture-backed company positioned to address the growing demand for faster and more energy-efficient data movement in AI data centre networks. Additional applications for OpenLight's technology include telecom, automotive and industrial sensing, IoT sensing, healthcare and quantum computing.
OpenLight's Process Design Kit (PDK), based on the heterogeneous integration of InP and silicon photonics, gives customers access to a library of passive and active components covering integrated lasers, modulators, amplifiers and detectors.
This PDK has been validated by Tower Semiconductor, ensuring designs are production-ready from day one. This enables customers to create custom PASICs using proven building blocks, simplifying advanced chip development and accelerating time-to-market.
OpenLight currently holds more than 360 patents covering its PDK and the manufacturing of heterogeneously integrated III-V photonics. The OpenLight PDK is already being used by over 20 companies to design and fabricate PASICs across a wide spectrum of applications.
With the new capital injection, OpenLight will expand its PDK library of active and passive photonics components, including its l400Gb/s modulator and InP heterogeneously integrated on-chip laser technology.
OpenLight will also ramp up its standard-based reference PICs at 1.6Tb/s and 3.2Tb/s to provide customers with the most flexible and leading-edge component design library available in the market. In addition, the company will scale its team to support customers as they transition to volume production over the next 12 months.
"As we enter this next phase of our company's growth, we are excited to be adding such strong investors with deep roots and expertise in the semiconductor and photonics industry," said Dr. Adam Carter, CEO of OpenLight. "With this strong syndicate of investors, we can push the boundaries of innovation and deliver transformative solutions to our customers. This funding will allow us to scale our operations, deepen our R&D efforts and bring our groundbreaking products to market faster. We believe heterogeneous integrated silicon photonics will transform the way data is processed and transmitted, and we're excited to be at the forefront of this revolution."
"Xora has conviction that the field of photonics is going to see exponential growth in the coming years, and III-V heterogeneous integration is one of the foundational capabilities that will enable this growth," said Phil Inagaki, managing partner and Chief Investment Officer, Xora. "We see OpenLight not only as a technology leader in this field, but also as a company positioned to quickly scale manufacturing with foundry partners. One of the critical challenges for the photonics industry in the back half of this decade will be achieving scale, and we see OpenLight's PDK as an important part of the solution."
"Optical connectivity in data centres has become critical for next-generation scale-up and scale-out AI architectures. OpenLight's heterogeneous integration delivers on all three axes of performance, reliability and cost, which will enable the explosive growth of optical IO," said Dipender Saluja, managing partner at Capricorn's Technology Impact Funds. "With the industry's leading team, open PDKs, strong foundry and customer relationships, OpenLight is best positioned to meet the scale of demand that is needed for next-generation AI hardware."
