Independent photonics intelligence
The companies, technologies and capital shaping optical infrastructure, distilled into the signals that matter.
Atreides Management and Valor Equity Partners led the Series C, with Premji Invest as co-lead; Sutter Hill Ventures and Maverick Silicon also participated, while NVIDIA and Intel Capital joined as strategic investors. The round brings total funding to $188M for an integrated light engine designed to contain optical failures across multi-rack AI systems.
Source: CScaleRead briefingBriefing desk
Socratic Partners led the Series A with Hudson River Trading, following a $12M seed led by Playground Global and bringing total funding to $39.5M. PicoJool plans to expand in the U.S. and Taiwan, qualify products with customers and move from chip-level 200G VCSELs and microVCSELs into AOC and NPO modules.
Source: PicoJoolRead briefingThe partners say NewPhotonics NPG102 photonic ICs are now shipping in volume for 800G and 1.6T products. The 200G-per-lane devices combine lasers, optical amplifiers, modulators and detectors on Tower's PH18DA silicon-photonics platform, while 6.4T NPC505 volume shipments are planned for the first half of 2027.
Source: Tower Semiconductor / NewPhotonicsRead briefingThe multi-year agreement increases capacity at GlobalFoundries' Burlington, Vermont fab for SiGe used in pluggable transceivers, NPO and CPO. The current platform supports 200G per lane and the companies say the added capacity builds on existing production for Marvell.
Source: GlobalFoundries / MarvellRead briefingThe additional capital extends the company's 2026 financing and supports product development, validation, manufacturing-ecosystem scale-up and a new Bengaluru design center. Ayar Labs also disclosed an earlier strategic investment from Wiwynn, joining backers including AMD, Intel, MediaTek and NVIDIA.
Source: Ayar LabsRead briefingThe NPC50506 is a 6.4T DR32 optical-engine chipset for Open CPX-aligned socketed NPO systems. It uses 224G PAM4 modulators, per-channel power monitoring and heterogeneous laser integration; samples were scheduled for the third quarter of 2026 and a hardware development kit for the fourth quarter.
Source: NewPhotonicsRead briefingThe Glasgow expansion is planned to begin in the second half of 2026 and become operational in the fourth quarter of 2027. Sivers says the hybrid manufacturing model will combine expanded internal capacity, automation and new process capability with external foundry and packaging partners.
Source: Sivers SemiconductorsRead briefingShowing 6 of 28 stories
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