GlobalFoundries has acquired Advanced Micro Foundry (AMF), a Singapore-based manufacturer of silicon photonic chips.

While no financial details were disclosed, the foundry giant said it will secure AMF’s manufacturing assets, intellectual property, and talent in a bid to expand its silicon photonics efforts.

GlobalFoundries claimed that upon closing, the acquisition will make it the “largest silicon photonics pure-play foundry by revenue.”

“Acquiring AMF enables GF to deliver an expanded and differentiated decade-long roadmap for pluggable transceivers and co-packaged optics, while accelerating growth of photonics into adjacent markets such as automotive and quantum computing,” said Tim Breen, GF’s CEO.

Faster than light

The acquisition marks the latest in the semiconductor industry’s growing march toward embracing photonics.

Conceptually, photonics is about breaking data transfer speeds by leveraging light instead of traditional electrons. Light can inherently transmit at ultra-fast speeds while using less energy – a concept that is growing ever more relevant amid the explosion of global data traffic brought about by demands from cloud, 5G, and now, AI.

While designing photonic hardware has its own quirks – everything from laser-chip integrations to choosing the right materials to prevent photonic signal losses – actually bringing all the components together at the manufacturing level is proving just as complex.

Since its founding in 2017, AMF has sought to develop manufacturing services to make photonic chips a reality.

The firm was spun out of the Singapore government research agencies, including A*STAR and IME. It counts semiconductor veterans among its leadership team, with CEO Jagadish CV having previously led SSMC, a joint venture between NXP and TSMC, while Patrick Lo Guo-Qiang holds more than 30 years of industry experience.

Alongside manufacturing photonic chips, AMF also conducts prototyping and testing services using its proprietary technology platforms built on in-house developed Process Design Kits (PDKs). The manufacturer uses these to tailor hardware for use in sectors ranging from telecoms and data centers to LiDAR and sensors.

GlobalFoundries’ acquisition of AMF comes as the foundry giant is looking to step further into the photonics space. The Singaporean firm will boost GF’s photonics portfolio and production capacity through its 200mm platform – potentially rising to 300mm “as market needs grow.”

AMF will aid GF’s existing silicon photonic efforts in New York, with the foundry giant set to launch a silicon photonics research and development center of excellence (CoE) in Singapore. The site will focus on unearthing next-generation materials for ultra-fast data transfer speeds at around 400Gbps.

“AMF and GF share a vision of innovation and close customer partnerships to deliver differentiated solutions,” said AMF’s CEO. “With complementary technology portfolios, we are proud to join forces with a trusted manufacturer with global reach, and together, look forward to advancing silicon photonics technology for a broader range of markets and customers.”

AMF is the second GlobalFoundries acquisition this year, after the foundry giant picked up MIPS, the RISC-V design company, back in July.