Innolight’s First Near-Package Optics Device Enters Early Production

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Tower Semiconductor announced on November 3, 2026 that Innolight’s first near-package optics (NPO) device has entered early production on Tower’s PH18M silicon photonics process in California, while multiple NPO products for future generations have taped out on its 300mm platform.

The work combines Innolight’s optical interconnect development with Tower’s high-volume silicon photonics manufacturing to address rising bandwidth and performance demands in AI infrastructure. Innolight chief technology officer Oliver Sun said the collaboration is intended to accelerate NPO development for hyperscale and AI data-center customers.

Tower president Marco Racanelli described Innolight as a cornerstone manufacturing customer across four Tower facilities: Newport Beach, California; San Antonio, Texas; and one site each in Israel and Japan.

Tower said NPO architectures typically require substantially more optical channels than conventional pluggable modules, often integrating 16 or more channels on one device, and could add demand beyond today’s pluggable market as AI workloads scale. As channel counts rise, manufacturing expertise, process control and yield performance become increasingly important.

The platforms support monolithic integration of multiple photonic functions, including wavelength-division multiplexing and demultiplexing, on a single chip.