STMicroelectronics has entered high-volume production of its silicon photonics-based PIC100 platform, targeting optical interconnect for data centers and AI clusters used by hyperscalers. The company says PIC100 supports 800G and 1.6T transceivers designed to deliver higher bandwidth, lower latency, and improved energy efficiency as AI infrastructure demand increases.
ST says PIC100 is in 300 mm high-volume production for “leading hyperscalers,” and it plans to expand capacity to “more than quadrupling of production by 2027,” with “further expand in 2028.” “Following the announcement of its new silicon photonics technology in February 2025, ST is now entering high-volume production for leading hyperscalers,” said Fabio Gualandris, President, Quality, Manufacturing & Technology, STMicroelectronics. “The combination of our technology platform and the superior scale of our 300 mm manufacturing lines gives us a unique competitive advantage to support the AI infrastructure super-cycle,” said Fabio Gualandris, President, Quality, Manufacturing & Technology, STMicroelectronics. “Looking ahead, we are planning and executing on capacity expansions to enable more than quadrupling of production by 2027. This fast expansion is fully underpinned by customers’ long-term capacity reservation commitments.”
On the device side, ST says the PIC100 platform provides “best-in-class” silicon and silicon nitride waveguide losses “as low as 0.4 and 0.5 dB/cm,” along with “advanced modulator and photodiode performance,” plus an “innovative edge coupling technology.” The company positions cloud-optical interconnect performance as a scaling bottleneck for AI infrastructure, with PIC100 aimed at addressing that constraint in data center links.
ST also disclosed an upcoming PIC100 TSV roadmap step: a platform that integrates through-silicon via (TSV) technology. ST says PIC100 TSV is intended to increase optical connectivity density, module integration, and “system-level thermal efficiency,” and to support future generations of Near Packaged Optics (NPO) and co-packaged optics (CPO) as hyperscalers move toward deeper optical–electronic integration.
ST says it will share roadmap updates at Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2026 in Los Angeles (March 15-19). Planned activities include a paper titled “An Innovative 300mm Back Side Integrated Silicon Photonics Platform for 200Gbits/lane Applications” and a “First PIC100-based demo of a 1.6T-DR8 silicon photonics transceiver, engine by Sicoya and STMicroelectronics,” shown on the Sicoya booth number 507.
Source: STMicroelectronics
