#Tower# Semiconductor and #NewPhotonics# have begun high-volume shipments of laser-integrated, serviceable optical-engine PICs supporting 800G to 1.6T, with CPX MSA-compliant 6.4T NPO chipsets planned for volume production in 2027. Built on Tower's market-leading PH18DA silicon photonics platform, these scale-ready solutions integrate InP lasers with high-performance photonic circuits across FRO, LRO, LPO, XPO and NPO architectures- delivering greater bandwidth density, power efficiency and reliability.

- Tower Semiconductor ($TSEM) and NewPhotonics have begun high-volume shipments of laser-integrated silicon photonics optical engines, with current production products supporting 800G and 1.6T. - The key technology is $TSEM's PH18DA SiPho platform, which heterogeneously integrates InP devices to combine lasers, SOAs, modulators, and photodetectors on a single PIC. - NewPhotonics' NPG102 uses a 200G-per-lane architecture for 800G and 1.6T PICs, targeting optical architectures ranging from FRO/LRO/LPO and XPO pluggables to NPO. - The more important next step is the 6.4T NPC505 chipset, a CPX-MSA-compliant NPO solution scheduled for volume shipment in 1H27, targeting both scale-out and scale-up AI interconnects. - $TSEM says NewPhotonics is the first customer to bring heterogeneous laser-integrated optical engines on PH18DA into high-volume production, although specific customers and shipment volumes were not disclosed. > The most important phrase here is “high-volume shipment.” This suggests $TSEM's silicon photonics platform has moved beyond PDKs, tape-outs, and prototypes into actual volume manufacturing of laser-integrated PICs. > Integrating the laser, SOA, modulator, and detector around a single PIC can reduce component count and optical-engine assembly complexity. As AI interconnects evolve from pluggables toward NPO and eventually CPO, the value of a highly integrated, scalable SiPho foundry platform could increase materially. > From an investment perspective, the key point is that $TSEM is increasingly becoming more than a legacy analog foundry and is beginning to establish itself as a merchant SiPho foundry tied directly to AI optical connectivity volume production. With 800G/1.6T already shipping and 6.4T NPO targeted for 1H27, the $TSEM SiPho story is gradually shifting from future optionality to a production ramp story.

$TSEM +9% Tower Semiconductor and NewPhotonics have begun high-volume shipments of laser-integrated optical engine chips for AI data center connectivity. The chips support 800G to 1.6T today, with 6.4T near-packaged optics planned for future volume production.

TLDRs of things I found interesting this week: - $INTC CEO says some memory prices have risen 5-7× and warns the shortage will worsen in 2027. $SNDK / $MU / Samsung bros will be happy to hear this... (from the AI Infra Summit 2026 in Santa Clara) - $GFS + $MRVL sign extended SiGe capacity agreement for pluggable/NPO/CPO. "Expected to add significant capacity to support Marvell’s growing requirements." I like to keep an eye out on Globalfoundries related updates given $SIVE is their reference laser for SCALE. - $CIEN expects roughly 30% annual revenue growth, 50% adj. gross margin, 20% FCF margin, through FY2029. The company says component availability, not demand, is limiting growth... Seems common across $NVDA to upstream suppliers that supply is the limiting factor for revenue growth. - Winbond acquires Infineon's NOR Flash and F-RAM business for $1.12 billion. Very surprised Infineon sold considering NOR Flash ASP + importance just keep going up and up and up, but good for Winbond consolidation. - Samsung reportedly expands outsourcing of DDR5-module and SSD assembly. I think some local Taiwan reports flag Transcend and Apacer as possible beneficiaries. The report specifically identifies Dreamtech, Hanyang Digitech and SFA Semicon. I've noticed other Korean firms entering new Samsung Electronics contracts for likely legacy memory modules maybe like ~1-2m ago.. So think some media commentary probably missed this too. Maybe too small for them to notice? - $NBIS raises AI cloud prices for the 2nd time in three months (~17-21%), bullish read through for other Neoclouds like $CRWV to $IREN earnings. - $AMZN signs $2.4B agreement with $GNRC for generator deliveries throughout 2027-2028... and received warrants tied to as much as $8B of aggregate purchases Good to keep an eye out on who Amazon signs these warrant agreements with (eg. Alchip, $AAOI, $QCOM, $MRVL, etc) and what type of infra procurement they want. - $TSEM and NewPhotonics begin volume shipments of laser integrated optical engines. Not familiar with newphotonics, so not going to leave much commentary here. But will do some research today. - Goldman Sachs reportedly sees the ABF deficit expanding from 14% to 51%. Forecast shortages are 14% in 2H26, 34% in 2027 and 51% in 2028... More substrate bottleneck stuff, not surprising regarding demand imbalances. - Crusoe raises $3.9B at a $30.9B valuation. Okay this valuation is better than Instinct raising at a bubble $10B valuation off 100k users... - Japan and the U.S. reportedly discuss a $12.9–19.3B $GFS run fab. That's like half of Globalfoundries marketcap lol. Not much details here. - $ARM CEO Rene Haas said he is confident that they can secure enough supply to meet $2B in customer demand (for their AGI CPU). There's probably a lot more demand, probably supply constrained growth as usual so good $ARM signaled confidence in securing allocations. - Supply chain sources said Kioxia has about 50% of its LTA capacity tied up, while SK Hynix/Samsung reserve about 70% of capacity for LTAs for 3-5 years. Not sure how people are bearish on memory.... I don't like posting updates one-by-one like a news reporter, so hope this saves some time of stuff I like looking at. On a side note was surprised markets from $AMD to $INTC rallied today after rate hikes. Think high-beta overshot the selloff the most.