GlobalFoundries (GF) today announced the acquisition of Advanced Micro Foundry (AMF), a silicon photonics foundry based in Singapore, marking a pivotal step in GF’s strategy to advance innovation and its leadership in silicon photonics. This acquisition will expand GF’s silicon photonics technology portfolio, production capacity and research and development in Singapore, complementing its existing technology capabilities in the U.S. and unlocking new market opportunities with a broader set of datacenter and communication technologies.

GF’s acquisition of AMF brings together AMF’s manufacturing assets, extensive intellectual property and skilled talent to significantly expand GF’s silicon photonics technology and establish the company as the largest silicon photonics pure-play foundry by revenue. Leveraging over 15 years of AMF’s manufacturing expertise, GF will address demands in long-haul optical communications, computing, LiDAR and sensing on AMF’s 200mm platform in Singapore with plans to scale to 300mm as market needs grow, ensuring reliable global supply for AI datacenters, communications and next-generation applications.

As traditional copper connections reach their physical limits, silicon photonics has emerged as a breakthrough technology that uses light to transfer data between and within data centers, delivering ultra-fast, energy-efficient performance. As GF continues to expand its U.S. manufacturing capacity for silicon photonics in New York, this acquisition accelerates the ramp of our Singapore operation, enhancing supply chain resilience and enabling customers to source secure, differentiated solutions from multiple geographies.

“Silicon photonics technology is essential for AI infrastructure. As data moves faster and workloads grow more complex, the ability to move information with greater speed, precision and power efficiency is now fundamental to AI datacenters and advanced telecom networks,” said Tim Breen, CEO of GF. “Acquiring AMF enables GF to deliver an expanded, and differentiated, decade-long roadmap for pluggable transceivers and co-packaged optics, while accelerating growth of photonics into adjacent markets such as automotive and quantum computing.”

In line with the acquisition, GF plans to establish a silicon photonics research and development center of excellence (CoE) in Singapore. This CoE will partner with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore’s lead public sector R&D agency, to advance GF’s innovation roadmap by focusing on next-generation materials for ultra-fast data transfer at 400Gbps speed. This collaboration will enhance the company’s silicon photonics platform to provide high-performance, secure data transfer solutions to our customers worldwide.

“AMF and GF share a vision of innovation and close customer partnerships to deliver differentiated solutions,” said Jagadish CV, CEO of AMF. “With complementary technology portfolios, we are proud to join forces with a trusted manufacturer with global reach, and together, look forward to advancing silicon photonics technology for a broader range of markets and customers.” 

TrendForce 2025 Infrared Sensing Application Market and Branding Strategies
Release: 01 January 2025
Format: PDF / EXCEL
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