(Reuters) – OpenLight, a company spun out of Juniper Networks Inc and controlled by Synopsys Inc, on Monday said it is launching a silicon photonics platform that chip design firms can use to integrate the technology into their chips.
Silicon photonics, which has been drawing more and more attention, uses light rather than electric current to process and transmit data.
OpenLight’s chief operating officer, Thomas Mader, said the new platform will make it easier for more semiconductor companies to integrate silicon photonics into their chip designs. It will first be launched for use through Tower Semiconductor Ltd, which Intel Corp. is in the process of buying. Intel has its own silicon photonics technology.
More and more startups have been using silicon photonics for faster, more energy-efficient computing. PitchBook estimated earlier this year that silicon photonics will become common hardware in data centers by 2025 with an estimated market of $3 billion.
The OpenLight platform, according to Mader, is different from many other silicon photonics solutions because the laser can be integrated directly onto the die, the silicon square part of the chip. The technology can be used for a wide range of chips from those used in lidars, sensors that use light to see things, to data centers, telecommunications and high-performance computing systems.
(Reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Leslie Adler)
