Key Findings
With the market shipment of Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) gaining momentum, leading global semiconductor foundries are adopting unique strategic approaches to the development and deployment of next-generation optical integration technologies. The divergent paths of TSMC, Intel, Samsung Foundry, and GlobalFoundries highlight the industry’s diverse pursuit of high-performance and power-efficient solutions for AI data centers.
Technical / Clinical Details
Each foundry’s approach is detailed as follows:
- **TSMC**: The company is expanding its existing advanced packaging technologies, CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) and SoIC (System-on-Integrated-Chips) ecosystems, into the optical domain. Specifically, TSMC is developing the COUPE (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate with Unconventional Photonic Engine) architecture, which involves 3D stacking of electrical and photonic dies, aiming for intimate integration of logic and optics.
- **Intel**: Leveraging its technological leadership, Intel has demonstrated integrated optical computing interconnect chiplets. This approach embeds optical devices directly into processors, enabling extremely high bandwidth and low latency.
- **Samsung Foundry**: Samsung is building on its 300mm silicon photonics platform, driving its transition towards optical engines and turnkey CPO solutions. Its strategy is to maximize the utilization of existing semiconductor manufacturing capabilities to accelerate optical integration.
- **GlobalFoundries**: As a specialized silicon photonics foundry, GlobalFoundries offers standard Process Design Kits (PDKs) and Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) services, providing broad customer access to optical integration technology. Its platform focuses on high-efficiency interconnects specifically for data center and AI applications.
Background & Context
The explosive growth of AI workloads has intensified interconnect bottlenecks in data centers, leading to increased power consumption and heat generation. CPO is an innovative technology designed to break this ‘interconnect wall’ by integrating laser sources and electronic chips within a single package, thereby significantly improving performance and efficiency. The focus of each foundry on CPO, along with their distinct technological approaches, underscores the immense market potential and the intensity of the technical competition to find optimal solutions.
Strategic Significance & Outlook
The diverse development and accelerating shipments of CPO technology by major foundries are critically important for shaping the future of AI data centers. This dynamic of competition and collaboration will foster the establishment of technical standards and accelerate the proliferation of cost-effective, high-performance optical interconnect solutions. Ultimately, these technological advancements are expected to contribute to the realization of larger, more efficient, and sustainable AI infrastructures, enabling further evolution of AI technology.
Source: https://mlq.ai/news/cpo-is-shipping-but-foundries-are-taking-four-different-routes/
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