With the exponential growth of AI computing needs, issues have grown around the performance and energy efficiency across computing, memory, power supply, and the interconnections linking them.
ST is working to help hyperscalers to overcome these challenges with new silicon photonics and next-gen BiCMOS technologies, scheduled to ramp up from the second half of 2025 for 800Gb/s and 1.6Tb/s optical modules.
At the heart of interconnections in a datacentre are thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of optical transceivers. These devices convert optical into electrical signals and vice versa to allow data flow between graphics processing unit (GPU) computing resources, switches and storage.
Inside these transceivers, ST’s new, proprietary silicon photonics (SiPho) technology will enable customers to integrate multiple complex components into one single chip, while ST’s next-gen, proprietary BiCMOS technology brings ultra high-speed and low power optical connectivity, which are key to sustaining the growth being seen in AI.
"AI demand is accelerating the adoption of high-speed communication technology within the datacentre ecosystem. This is the right time for ST to introduce new power efficient silicon photonics technology and complementing it with a new generation of BiCMOS for our customers to design the next wave of optical interconnect products, which will enable 800Gbps/1.6Tbps solutions for the hyperscalers,” said Remi El-Ouazzane, President, Microcontrollers, Digital ICs and RF products Group at STMicroelectronics.
“Both technologies will be manufactured on 300mm processes in Europe, bringing customers an independent high-volume supply for two key components of their optical module development strategy. This announcement represents the first step for our PIC product-family and, thanks to close collaboration with key partners across the entire value chain, our ambition is to become a key supplier of silicon photonics and BiCMOS wafers for the datacentre and AI cluster market, be it pluggable optics today or optical I/O tomorrow.”
“The Pluggable Optics for Data Center Market is experiencing significant growth and was valued at $7 billion in 2024,” said Dr. Vladimir Kozlov, CEO and Chief Analyst at LightCounting. “This market is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 23% during 2025-2030 to exceed $24 billion at the end of this period. Market share of transceivers based on silicon photonics modulators will increase from 30% in 2024 to 60% by 2030.”
