HyperLight, UMC & Wavetek Partner for TFLN Chiplet™ Foundry Production

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HyperLight Corporation, United Microelectronics Corporation, and Wavetek Microelectronics Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of UMC, announced a strategic manufacturing partnership for high-volume foundry production of HyperLight’s TFLN (thin-film lithium niobate) Chiplet™ Platform on both 6-inch and 8-inch wafers. The collaboration marks a major inflection point in the commercialization of TFLN photonics, enabling the manufacturing capacity required for AI and cloud infrastructure deployment at scale.

Designed from inception to enable AI-infrastructure-scale production, the TFLN Chiplet™ Platform unifies the requirements of short-reach IMDD-based data center pluggables, longer-reach coherent-based datacom and telecom modules, and co-packaged optics (CPO) within a single high-volume manufacturable architecture. HyperLight serves as the platform architect, while UMC and Wavetek provide the high-volume foundry manufacturing infrastructure required for global deployment.

Building on HyperLight’s long-standing collaboration with Wavetek, which brought TFLN photonics from laboratory innovation to a customer-qualified, high-volume manufacturing (HVM) line within a 6-inch CMOS foundry, UMC is bringing to the partnership its 8-inch production capability and expertise to support the scale required for AI infrastructure growth.

“TFLN has long been recognized as one of the most important technologies for the future of optical interconnects, but the industry has been waiting for a path to true manufacturing scale,” said Mian Zhang, CEO of HyperLight. “The HyperLight TFLN Chiplet Platform was architected from the beginning to unify the requirements of IMDD, coherent, and co-packaged optics into a single manufacturable foundation. The era of TFLN as a niche technology is over. Together with UMC and Wavetek, we are bringing TFLN into high-volume foundry production—enabling the performance, reliability, and cost structure required for AI infrastructure deployment at global scale.”

“To achieve 1.6T bandwidth and beyond, TFLN is emerging as a promising material to deliver the bandwidth requirements for next-generation data center connectivity. UMC is pleased to be a key 8-inch manufacturing partner to bring HyperLight’s scalable platform to the mass market,” said G C Hung, Senior Vice President of UMC. “This partnership sets a new benchmark in the industry and positions the team to lead TFLN production for the rapid growth of AI, cloud, and networking infrastructure.”

“Wavetek has worked closely with HyperLight over the past several years to translate TFLN from a promising material innovation into a qualified, customer-ready high-volume manufacturing line within a CMOS foundry environment,” said Bruce Lai, Chairman of Wavetek. “This announcement marks the next major step—building on that proven foundation to support the volume production and market deployment required for next-generation optical systems. We are proud to continue enabling both high-volume manufacturing and ongoing innovation for TFLN photonics.”

The TFLN Chiplet Platform enables fundamental performance gains including extreme high modulation bandwidth, CMOS-level drive voltage and ultralow optical loss. For AI networks across all interconnect distances, TFLN reduces laser consumption and supports CMOS direct-drive voltage, lowering power consumption as lane speeds continue to scale. For emerging applications like quantum computing and sensing, the TFLN Chiplet platform enables the extreme performance required at scale.

HyperLight’s platform approach consolidates diverse customer requirements into a standardized, production-ready architecture, reducing ecosystem complexity, lowering manufacturing risk, and enabling rapid, cost-competitive adoption of TFLN photonics at global scale.