GlobalFoundries acquires Singapore-based photonics foundry AMF
GlobalFoundries has acquired Advanced Micro Foundry (AMF), a Singapore-based silicon photonics specialist, in a move that significantly expands the company’s manufacturing footprint and its technology portfolio for optical communications and AI-driven data infrastructure.
The deal brings AMF’s manufacturing assets, intellectual property and engineering teams under GlobalFoundries’ control, making GF the largest pure-play silicon photonics foundry by revenue. AMF’s operations, built around a 200-mm platform with plans to scale to 300-mm production, add more than 15 years of manufacturing expertise to GF’s existing capabilities in the United States.
GF said the acquisition addresses accelerating demand for photonics-based data transfer as copper interconnects reach physical limits in high-performance computing and AI datacenters. Silicon photonics enables faster and more energy-efficient data movement both within and between data centres, and GF aims to use the expanded platform to support long-haul optical communications, computing, LiDAR, sensing and emerging applications.
“Silicon photonics technology is essential for AI infrastructure. As data moves faster and workloads grow more complex, the ability to move information with greater speed, precision and power efficiency is now fundamental to AI datacenters and advanced telecom networks,” said Tim Breen, CEO of GF, in a press release. “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.”
The company is already increasing its silicon photonics capacity in New York. AMF’s addition is expected to speed up the ramp-up of GF’s Singapore operations and provide customers with supply from multiple manufacturing regions.
As part of the acquisition, GF plans to establish a silicon photonics centre of excellence in Singapore. The new R&D hub will work with Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) to develop next-generation materials and technologies, including platforms targeting data-transfer speeds of 400 Gbps.
AMF CEO Jagadish CV said the two companies’ technology portfolios and customer approaches are complementary and that the combined organisation will support a broader set of markets and customers.
