silicon photonics

Volantis

2026-10-03 12:09:32

Volantis says it raised $88 million in Series A to pursue optical interconnects for AI memory limits

Volantis, an optical interconnect chip company, said on X that it has completed an $88 million Series A round. The company said it is using an optical approach to address AI memory bottlenecks by equipping chips with large amounts of high-speed memory and lifting per-chip memory bandwidth and capacity by several orders of magnitude. Volantis said the design is aimed at high-speed inference for models with more than 10 trillion parameters, with throughput of up to 10,000 tokens per second for a single user. In its initial stage, the company said the technology will be used to accelerate agents, cutting programming-related tasks from hours to minutes or seconds. Volantis also said optical systems can improve memory performance by several orders of magnitude across generations instead of roughly doubling each year, and added that its next-generation product has taped out.

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Robotech

2026-09-29 11:39:12

Robotech closes below issue price in Hong Kong debut as silicon photonics push overtakes shrinking solar business

Robotech (300757.SZ/03757.HK) started trading in Hong Kong on Sept. 29 after pricing its H shares at HK$436, a level that ranked among the highest IPO prices in the market’s history. The company raised about HK$5.178 billion in gross proceeds and HK$4.961 billion in net proceeds from the sale of 11.876 million shares. Yet the stock failed to hold the offer price in gray-market trading and on debut day, ending at HK$414.40, down 4.95%. Based on a board lot of 50 shares, investors who received one lot were sitting on a paper loss of HK$1,080 before fees. The listing comes as Robotech’s business mix is changing quickly. Its solar equipment segment, once the main revenue pillar, has weakened sharply as the photovoltaic industry remains in a supply-demand adjustment cycle. Revenue from photovoltaic equipment and integrated solutions fell to RMB 433 million in 2025, while unit sales of photovoltaic automation equipment dropped from 1,932 units in 2023 to 110 units in 2025. In the first half of 2026, solar segment revenue fell 53.93% year over year to RMB 82.9849 million. At the same time, the company’s acquisition of Germany-based ficonTEC has turned photonics and semiconductor packaging and testing equipment into its main growth engine. That segment generated RMB 488 million in the first half of 2026, up 952.17% from a year earlier, and accounted for 81.16% of main business revenue. As of Aug. 25, Robotech’s unrecognized order backlog stood at about RMB 3.386 billion, including RMB 2.452 billion tied to photonics and semiconductor business.

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Wuhan Xinrong

2026-09-29 03:48:21

Wuhan’s Xinrongguang launches with RMB 13.2 billion in registered capital as a new semiconductor unicorn emerges

Wuhan Xinrongguang Technology Co., Ltd. has been registered in Wuhan’s Optics Valley with RMB 13.2 billion in registered capital, immediately placing it among the city’s most closely watched semiconductor startups. The company’s shareholder roster includes 38 backers spanning industrial investors, state-linked funds, and market-oriented venture and private equity firms, such as Wuhan Xinxin, Optics Valley industry investors, SMIC-affiliated CFT Capital, Shenzhen Capital Group, Oriza Puhua, GF Xinde, Sequoia China, Cowin Capital, Cornerstone Capital, and China Merchants Capital. The timing has also drawn attention. One day after Xinrongguang completed its registration, Yangtze Memory’s holding company saw its STAR Market IPO review status updated to “inquiry received,” with a planned fundraising target of RMB 33 billion. The report links Xinrongguang’s debut to a broader reshaping of Wuhan’s semiconductor landscape, especially after ownership changes separated Wuhan Xinxin from Changcun Holding in 2026. According to the report, Xinrongguang was set up after that equity restructuring and is being viewed as a new platform led by Wuhan Xinxin. Its business scope covers integrated circuit design, chip manufacturing, power electronic component manufacturing, and technology import and export. The article also places the company in the context of Wuhan’s longer push into storage, optical communications, silicon photonics, and AI infrastructure.

190

Hermes Testin

2026-09-22 01:02:17

Hermes Testing opens at NT$4,400 after record IPO pricing, lifting valuation focus on chip testing peers

Hermes Testing Solutions (7856) began trading on Taiwan’s OTC market on Sept. 22 after pricing its IPO at NT$2,250 per share, a level ABMedia said set a new record for the highest underwriting price in a Taiwan first-time listing. The stock opened at NT$4,400, drawing attention to its debut performance, share distribution and the read-through for other semiconductor testing names. Before listing, Hermes had traded as high as NT$5,445 on the emerging market. Its public subscription also drew massive demand, with frozen capital reaching NT$865.6 billion and the winning rate falling to about 0.29%, according to the report. Institutional bidding was also strong: qualified bids totaled 18,232 lots, locking in more than NT$41 billion, while the weighted average winning bid came in at NT$4,272.70. ABMedia linked the company’s premium valuation to demand tied to advanced packaging, CoWoS and co-packaged optics, or CPO. The report also cited analyst Tsai Ming-han, who compared Hermes with WinWay, MPI and CHPT, saying the listing had intensified valuation comparisons across Taiwan’s AI testing and semiconductor interface segment. Tsai added that investors should avoid chasing breakouts and instead wait for pullbacks while watching revenue momentum and 2027 earnings visibility.

570

SEMICON Taiwa

2026-09-14 07:15:41

Post-SEMICON Taiwan takeaways: FOPLP, glass substrates and silicon photonics open five new supply-chain angles

A post-event discussion from Statementdog following SEMICON Taiwan highlighted how the semiconductor supply chain is being reshaped as AI computing pushes performance and power demands higher. The program focused on order spillover from wafer foundries into advanced packaging, the rise of fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP), new thermal materials such as diamond and insulating silicon carbide, and the growing importance of high-precision optical alignment equipment for co-packaged optics (CPO). The discussion said advanced packaging is no longer confined to foundries. OSAT companies including ASE, SPIL and Powertech, along with European players, are expanding more aggressively into the segment, with capital spending in many cases rising by more than 100% as they try to replicate and refine advanced packaging processes. Statementdog also pointed to TSMC’s expected adoption of ASML’s High-NA EUV tools around 2030 as a sign of its strategy of delaying mature-spec adoption to pursue what it described as the best cost efficiency. Beyond packaging, the program flagged five areas to watch: order spillover tied to European capacity expansion, still-unsettled thermal material standards, diverging FOPLP process routes, high-priced optical alignment platforms for silicon photonics and CPO, and equipment demand linked to the shift from glass carriers toward glass substrates and interposers.

1080

TSMC

2026-09-14 02:40:57

TSMC speeds up CPO push as copper interconnects near power and signal limits

TSMC is accelerating its push into co-packaged optics, or CPO, as rising GPU and ASIC compute capacity pushes traditional copper interconnects closer to their limits in power consumption and signal transmission, according to a Sept. 14 report by Taiwan's Commercial Times cited by ChainCatcher. Industry observers say CPO bandwidth could form an "optical Moore's Law" for the AI era if it continues doubling every two years. The report outlined three main upgrade paths for CPO bandwidth: increasing single-lane speed from 200G to above 400G, expanding optical channel counts from 16 to 32 and then beyond 64, and adopting wavelength division multiplexing, or WDM. On that basis, the theoretical ceiling by 2040 could reach about 128 times current levels. Using the present 3.2T class as a reference point, the long-term trajectory could extend into the hundreds of terabits. TSMC's role in optical interconnects is also expanding from pure wafer foundry work to system integration across 3DFabric, CoWoS, SoIC, silicon photonics and CPO, combining compute, HBM memory and high-speed I/O. The report added that once electrical signals exceed 200G, attenuation worsens across longer copper paths including ABF substrates, PCBs and connectors, pushing the industry toward shorter copper links and longer optical links. Mass production of CPO still faces packaging, optical coupling and testing hurdles.

930

FCC

2026-09-11 11:39:15

FCC final rule stops short of directly targeting major Chinese optical module makers

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has formally released its final rule on equipment authorization and communications supply chain security, with publication set for Sept. 11 and the measure taking effect 30 days later. The outcome was less severe than many in the market had feared: core Chinese companies in the optical communications supply chain, including Eoptolink, Innolight, Suzhou Dongshan Precision Manufacturing and TFC Communication, were not directly placed on an FCC restriction list. The report says the immediate threat of a blanket ban has not materialized, even after the FCC moved optical transceiver modules into the Cover List control scope on July 22 and a draft proposal surfaced on Aug. 4 suggesting a ban on imports of new Chinese optical transceiver models. Still, the broader contest over supply chain security remains in place. A second and arguably deeper shift is unfolding at the same time. Co-packaged optics, or CPO, is moving toward mass production, led by companies such as NVIDIA and Broadcom. The article argues that while geopolitical restrictions may pressure Chinese suppliers, the more serious long-term challenge lies in the transition from pluggable modules to integrated optical-electrical architectures, especially as overseas foundries have already built out their positions in silicon photonics manufacturing.

1240

Hance

2026-09-09 00:28:46

Hance IPO pricing gap lifts attention on semiconductor test names Yingwei and MPI

Hance (7856), a key stock on Taiwan’s emerging market, is scheduled to begin its initial over-the-counter public subscription on Sept. 10, with an underwriting price set at TWD 2,250 per share. The price marks a record high for Taiwan’s primary listing and OTC underwriting market. Based on an emerging-market trading price of about TWD 4,700 cited in the source, the implied spread for one standard lot exceeds TWD 2.4 million, drawing strong market attention. The valuation gap has also pushed investors to revisit pricing across semiconductor testing interface and inspection equipment names. The report said stocks such as Yingwei (6515) and MPI (6223) posted notable market reactions as capital rotated into higher-priced semiconductor inspection plays. Yingwei hit limit-up during a broader market pullback, while MPI drew added attention after the source linked the company to a TSMC-certified testing equipment supply chain adopted by Samsung Electronics for its silicon photonics push. ABMedia also tied the move to demand from more advanced semiconductor manufacturing, including angstrom-level processes, heterogeneous integration, EUV, and silicon photonics, all of which raise the technical bar for inspection equipment and probe cards.

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