en.Wedoany.com Reported - Korean materials, components, and equipment companies are gaining increasing attention in the Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) market.
Industry sources revealed on June 12 that Korean optical communication-related companies, including RF Materials and Sungho Electronics, are supplying key CPO-related components and equipment to global firms. CPO is a technology that packages an optical engine together with a switching chip, and is considered a core technology of silicon photonics. Silicon photonics uses light instead of electrical signals to transmit data within semiconductor chips, requiring laser light sources, optical engines, precision alignment, and advanced packaging technologies. Nvidia has identified this field as a key inflection point for next-generation AI infrastructure, as it is expected to help resolve data bottlenecks.
RF Materials signed a pump laser packaging supply agreement with Metallife-USA in April. Pump lasers are core components that provide light sources for optical engines, with the end customer being major CPO supply chain company Lumentum. Lumentum has signed a long-term laser supply agreement with Nvidia for silicon photonics applications. ADS Tech, acquired by Sungho Electronics, has secured customers including Nvidia subsidiary Mellanox Technologies, as well as Broadcom, Lumentum, Corning, and Fabrinet. The company supplies active alignment equipment required for optical transceiver assembly, which precisely aligns optical fibers, lenses, and lasers with micron-level accuracy, crucial for minimizing optical signal loss.
Laserssel recently received an order for a Laser Selective Reflow (LSR) equipment from a global CPO module manufacturer. The company also supplies equipment to outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) companies in Taiwan and Singapore, while discussing potential supply deals with a Japanese substrate manufacturer. LSR is a precision bonding technology that uses lasers to melt solder only in target areas, suitable for packaging heat-sensitive optical devices and semiconductors in the CPO process. OE Solutions is supplying tunable optical transceivers to a U.S. network equipment company and co-developing External Laser Small Form-factor Pluggable (ELSFP) products with global tech giants. This technology places the laser light source outside the package and supplies light to the CPO engine. Opticore has also secured a series of supply contracts for 400G and 800G optical transceivers for AI data centers. Optical transceivers convert electrical signals into optical signals.
Korean companies are entering the optical module market connecting servers within AI data centers. As optical connectivity expands across entire data centers, demand for long-distance optical communication technology is also rising. LiComm has supplied optical amplifiers for data center interconnect (DCI) applications to global optical communication equipment company 1Finity. Optical amplifiers boost weakened optical signals during long-distance transmission, used to connect networks between data centers. TMC has also signed a fiber optic cable supply agreement with a U.S. AI infrastructure company for connecting servers and switches within AI data centers.
Korean companies are also accelerating the development and business expansion of CPO-related technologies. LC Square and Sigetronics have begun jointly developing optical transmission modules that connect Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) via optical signals, targeting commercialization by 2028. Chemtronics has identified CPO as an application area based on Through Glass Via (TGV) technology in its corporate value enhancement plan, aiming to integrate CPO with next-generation substrate technology for AI semiconductors. Major Korean conglomerates are also expanding their silicon photonics and CPO businesses. Samsung Electronics stated in its first-quarter earnings call that it has received orders from optical communication module companies, laying the foundation for its silicon photonics business, and plans to begin mass production in the second half of this year. Samsung Electro-Mechanics and LG Innotek are also developing CPO-related substrate technologies, including optical waveguide technology. LG Innotek recently established a partnership with Sungho Electronics, the parent company of ADS Tech, in the field of optical component alignment equipment.
Nvidia recently launched the Spectrum-X Photonics network switch, which adopts silicon photonics technology. The switch features a CPO structure, packaging the optical engine together with the switching semiconductor, designed to build AI infrastructure capable of connecting millions of GPUs. Broadcom has mass-produced CPO-based network switches, and TSMC is expanding investment in optical packaging technology. This technology integrates optical semiconductor dies and electrical signal processing dies into a single package.
This article is compiled by Wedoany. All AI citations must indicate the source as "Wedoany". If there is any infringement or other issues, please notify us promptly, and we will modify or delete it accordingly. Email: news@wedoany.com
