Innolight Advances NPO Product Development on Tower Semiconductor’s 300 mm Silicon Photonics Platform as First Device Enters Early Production

Tower Semiconductor and Innolight announced on November 3, 2026, that their collaboration on Near-Package Optics (NPO) applications for next-generation AI infrastructure has advanced on two fronts.

Multiple Tape-Outs Signal Expansion Beyond First Device

Innolight's first NPO device has entered early production on Tower's PH18M Silicon Photonics process flow at the company's California factory in the US, while, in parallel, Innolight has taped out multiple NPO products on Tower's 300 mm Silicon Photonics platform to support future product generations.

The two companies are combining Innolight's optical interconnect expertise with Tower's high-volume 200 mm and 300 mm Silicon Photonics manufacturing platforms in response to rising performance and bandwidth requirements in AI infrastructure.

Hyperscale Demand Drives NPO Adoption

The announcement states that as AI workloads scale, NPO architectures are emerging among the preferred approaches for next-generation optical interconnects, with demand expected to extend beyond today's pluggable optical module market and open a new phase of optical interconnect solutions for AI and cloud infrastructure.

"Near-Package Optics is emerging as a key technology for next-generation AI and cloud infrastructure," said Oliver Sun, CTO of Innolight. "Our collaboration with Tower provides us with industry-leading capabilities, enabling us to accelerate the development of NPO solutions to meet the evolving needs of hyperscale and AI data center customers."

Complex Designs Put Yield and Process Control in Focus

The companies note that NPO designs typically demand substantially higher optical channel counts than conventional pluggable optical modules, frequently integrating 16 or more channels on a single device. Rising channel counts make manufacturing expertise, process control, and yield performance increasingly critical factors.

Tower maintains that its high-volume Silicon Photonics manufacturing leadership, backed by its advanced 200 mm and 300 mm SiPho platforms, delivers the process uniformity, high-yield performance, and broad device offerings required for these increasingly complex designs.

The platform also supports monolithic integration of multiple photonic functions, including wavelength division multiplexing and demultiplexing on one chip, adding functionality in a compact footprint while optimizing performance and scalability.

Innolight Now Manufacturing Across Four Tower Sites

Dr. Marco Racanelli, President of Tower Semiconductor, said that given Innolight's market and product leadership, the company remains a critical technology partner for Tower's silicon photonics roadmap and a cornerstone manufacturing customer now across four facilities: two in the US, in Newport Beach, California, and San Antonio, Texas, and one each in Israel and Japan

He added that combining Innolight's innovation in optical connectivity with Tower's differentiated Silicon Photonics technologies and manufacturing expertise continues to advance solutions addressing the demands of future optical networks.

Company Backgrounds

Tower Semiconductor, traded on NASDAQ and the TASE under TSEM, positions itself as a leading foundry of high-value analog semiconductor solutions serving industrial, automotive, mobile, infrastructure, medical, and aerospace & defense markets.

Its technology portfolio spans silicon photonics, SiGe, RF CMOS, CMOS image sensors, power management, and mixed-signal technologies, supported by design enablement and process transfer services, with a global network of 200 mm and 300 mm fabs in Israel, the US, Japan, and Italy.

Innolight supplies optical connectivity solutions for data center and AI infrastructure applications and describes itself as a world leader in high-speed optical solutions for optical communication networking, particularly for AI and data center uses, with operations in California, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, and Suzhou, China.

The announcement originated from Migdal Haemek, Israel, and Suzhou, China.