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24 Sep 2024
Harvard spin-off HyperLight and Swiss startup Lightium land a combined $44M for photonic chip technologies.
Zurich-based Lightium and Cambridge, Massachusetts, HyperLight - two startup firms that are both working on thin-film lithium niobate technology (TFLN) for photonic applications - have raised $7 million and $37 million respectively in venture support.
HyperLight is a 2018 spin-out from nearby Harvard University, while Lightium’s co-founding team set up the firm in 2023 following related work at the Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM).
The companies are each looking to exploit the well-understood advantages of lithium niobate material, which in the photonics realm include a high optical linearity, broad transmission range from visible to mid-infrared wavelengths, and nonlinear optical frequency conversion.
HyperLight already offers photonic integrated circuits (PICs) based on its proprietary, production-grade TFLN platform, with products including packaged modulators and PIC transmitters.
“Our products offer exceptional electro-optic bandwidth, low energy consumption, and volume production capability, giving our customers a significant competitive advantage across a diverse range of market sectors,” states the firm on its web site.
Open-access foundry plan
Lightium is in the process of setting up a production-grade photonic foundry operation, with services currently scheduled to launch at the start of 2025.
It says that the $7 million raised in seed financing from backers including Vsquared Ventures and Lakestar will help to “turbocharge” the performance of data centers while simultaneously reducing their energy consumption as the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and applications like ChatGPT send demand for data skyrocketing.
“Founded by Dr. Amir Ghadimi, Dr. Frédéric Loizeau, and MIT professor and serial entrepreneur Prof. Dirk Englund, Lightium is the first company to design and manufacture TFLN-based photonic chips at an industrial scale,” claims the firm.
“By 2030, data centers will handle 100 times more data and consume up to 10 per cent of the world’s electricity. Their electricity consumption globally is already on par with that of Japan, making them the fifth-largest energy-consuming country in the world.”
Lightium explains that while companies like Nvidia have made significant strides in making graphics processing units more powerful for AI demands, a critical gap remains in the data transmission speed and efficiency of optical interconnects, with significant technical challenges at speeds beyond beyond 800 Gb/s.
Beyond the data center
TFLN promises one possible solution, and a route to data speeds of 3.2 Tb/s alongside improved power efficiency - however the glass-like material is difficult to process and has typically been restricted to prototyping in academic and research settings.
“Lightium precisely addresses this challenge with its proprietary manufacturing process geared towards volume production,” states the Zurich firm, with Ghadimi adding:
“Current semiconductor-based technologies that are powering data centers have reached their limits - they cannot run faster or more efficiently. Lightium uses TFLN to solve this problem and we have now developed the manufacturing capability to provide this technology at scale for the industry.”
While data centers currently present the most obvious market for the technology, Lightium does see many other potential uses, including satellite communication, quantum computing, novel optical computing architectures, and lidar - and believes that the open-access foundry model will be ideal for meeting the diverse technological needs across those sectors.
Though currently in a closed beta run with strategic partners, the next year should see Lightium enhance its manufacturing and design and testing capabilities, optimize its process design kit (PDK), and expand its partnership network to support wide-scale commercialization.
HyperLight
HyperLight, whose series B round of investment was led by Summit Partners, cites the same motivations as Lightium, stating that current PICs have become bottlenecks for high-performance optical communication.
Summit’s managing director and CEO Peter Chung commented: “We believe TFLN will be the photonics platform of the future and identified HyperLight as an emerging category leader.
“The HyperLight team has established an impressive track record of pioneering innovation and strong execution. In a short time, the company has evolved this critical technology into market-ready products with a production-ready supply chain.
“We look forward to supporting the HyperLight team and working alongside the company’s current investors as they pursue their vision to build a category-defining company in photonics.”
HyperLight CEO Mian Zhang, who has been in the role for nearly six years following technology development while at Harvard, posted on LinkedIn:
“It feels like just yesterday when I first stumbled upon thin-film lithium niobate - the game-changing material that’s set to revolutionize the photonics industry. I’m grateful to be part of an incredible team working to bring cutting-edge photonic integrated circuit technology to life.”
The series B round also saw participation from existing investors Xora Innovation and Foothill Ventures, with Summit’s Chung set to join HyperLight’s board of directors.
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