Kaiam Corporation, a leader in advanced data center transceivers, today announced the completion of the acquisition of the manufacturing facilities of Compound Photonics (CP) in Newton Aycliffe in the UK.
The acquisition includes investment by CP into Kaiam to further develop the facility.
“We welcome Kaiam, an international corporation that has already found success in the UK. I am pleased that this
semiconductor manufacturing capability is to be retained in County Durham, and that it will continue to grow the Photonics industry in the UK.”
The Newton Aycliffe facility will enable Kaiam to significantly increase its manufacturing capacity for silica-on-silicon planar lightwave circuits (PLCs) and 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s transceivers, and adds both electronic and optoelectronic compound semiconductor devices to the product line.
The acquisition brings new space, tooling, and an experienced team to complement and expand upon Kaiam’s existing Livingston, Scotland factory. The new facility also allows Kaiam to produce InP Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) that will be needed for advanced transceivers in the future. This continues Kaiam’s strategy of vertical integration that began with its acquisition of Gemfire’s PLC fab in 2013.
The Newton Aycliffe facility is 300,000 sq. ft. and includes a fully operational wafer fab with 100,000 sq. ft. of cleanroom space for processing, packaging, and testing of III-V devices. The factory currently ships GaAs devices and circuits, and has the capability for InP optoelectronics. Originally built as silicon fab for DRAMs, the plant was converted to III-V materials by subsequent acquirers and now has both 3” and 6” lines for III-V devices.
This new facility will give Kaiam essential PIC capability, positioning well to meet customers’ needs for continuously improving speed, cost, power, density, and manufacturing scale.
Dr. Simon Goon, Managing Director of Business Durham, said “We welcome Kaiam, an international corporation that has already found success in the UK. I am pleased that this semiconductor manufacturing capability is to be retained in County Durham, and that it will continue to grow the Photonics industry in the UK.”
Kaiam Headquartered is in California, with large-scale manufacturing in Livingston, Scotland, Kaiam is a private
company commercializing photonic integrated circuits. Founded in 2009 by leading technologists from the optical networking industry, the team has a record of delivering breakthrough products that change the rules of the marketplace.
Current products include 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s LightScale™ optical transceivers optimized for data centers and a range of planar lightwave circuits (PLCs). Compound Photonics Group Limited is a privately held photonics company, working in Liquid Crystal on Silicon display devices and laser technologies for a range of end uses in the projection and near to eye display markets.
It has offices in Vancouver WA, and fabs in Phoenix AZ and Madison, WI.
