According to Focus Taiwan, an important new industry alliance was announced at SEMICON Taiwan. Over 30 Taiwanese tech industry heavyweights are in the new Silicon Photonics Industry Alliance (SiPhIA), demonstrating that this branch of semiconductor development is now getting serious attention. Leading semiconductor firms like TSMC, ASE, Foxconn, and MediaTek are among the SiPhIA collective, which sees photonics as a solution to the thorny issue of computer energy efficiency in the artificial intelligence (AI) era.
On the newly set up SiPhIA website pages, the alliance says that “silicon photonics is becoming essential” due to the increased demand for efficient data processing. The broad coalition of firms is gratifying as advancing within silicon photonics requires a wide range of scientific disciplines, requiring expertise in materials, optics, electronics, and manufacturing. Moreover, the alliance will seek expertise beyond industry, casting its nets to gather resources from government, academia, and research institutions.
Focus Taiwan quotes senior executives from the likes of TSMC and ASE, who took to the SEMICON stage to welcome the formation of SiPhIA. In summary, the industry luminaries thought Taiwan was industrially and academically well-placed to advance the cause and industry of silicon photonics. Moreover, they were hopeful of the potential of light-based technology to help break the looming limits and bottlenecks presented by traditional electronic chip technologies, which rely on electricity transmission – with the power and heat implications becoming increasingly restrictive.
To carry out its mission effectively, SiPhIA will deliver a collaborative platform for sharing and discussing technological breakthroughs, markets, and trends, with an eye on fostering industry consensus, market development, and standards.
Perhaps SiPhIA’s first and most important work will be to establish a photonics technology roadmap and identify key targets for R&D. Also, according to some of the tech execs at SEMICON, one of the key things that needs to be addressed is the cost of silicon photonics – said to be a result of the current industry’s small quantity production.
