Lightmatter and Amkor Technology Partner to Build World's Largest 3D Photonics Package

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Nov 14, 2024

Lightmatter, the leader in photonic supercomputing, today announced a strategic partnership with Amkor Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMKR), a leading provider of semiconductor packaging and test services, to create the largest-ever 3D-packaged chip complex utilizing Lightmatter’s innovative Passage™ platform. This collaboration harnesses Lightmatter’s groundbreaking 3D-stacked photonic engine along with Amkor’s advanced multi-die packaging expertise to meet the unprecedented interconnect scaling and power demands of today’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads.

With the end of Moore's Law, scaling AI performance at the chip level increasingly requires integrating more silicon in a single package. Many GPU and accelerator providers address this by incorporating multiple processor, memory and I/O chiplets onto an electrical silicon interposer. While this approach boosts compute capabilities within a package, the I/O bandwidth of the chip is severely constrained by the limited shoreline and the competing need to integrate more memory.

Lightmatter's Passage platform overcomes these shoreline constraints by using 3D integration of customer dies directly onto a silicon photonic interconnect, enabling optical I/O anywhere across the chip area. This platform provides significantly higher connection density and bandwidth both within and outside the package. Additionally, it natively integrates Optical Circuit Switching (OCS) within the interconnect, offering enhanced resiliency and flexibility in interconnect topology. Through their partnership, Lightmatter and Amkor are delivering unmatched advantages of this combined solution to customers, enabling the industry’s largest multi-reticle die complex on an organic substrate within a 3D package.

“We are delighted to partner with Amkor on a 3D photonics solution that pushes both the boundaries of advanced packaging as well as silicon performance,” said Ritesh Jain, SVP of Engineering and Operations at Lightmatter. “This collaboration is a pivotal step in building a world-class ecosystem that empowers our customers to realize AI and HPC compute offerings with unprecedented bandwidth and efficiency.”

As AI processors grow larger, so does their power consumption, doubling every two years. Passage, an all-photonic silicon interconnect layer, seamlessly integrates into a 3D package to address this challenge. This innovative approach enables superior energy efficiency and performance, particularly in demanding thermal conditions. The combined expertise of Lightmatter and Amkor in photonics and 3D packaging has led to a breakthrough that unlocks unprecedented silicon density and bandwidth within a single package. This technological achievement paves the way for the next major computing advances, including AGI.

“As a leader in advanced semiconductor packaging, we are thrilled to collaborate with Lightmatter on integration with their cutting-edge Passage platform,” said Kevin Engel, EVP, Business Units at Amkor. “Leveraging our deep semiconductor integration expertise, we are working closely with Lightmatter to develop and validate a robust 3D packaging solution to bring this groundbreaking silicon photonics technology to mainstream market availability.”

For more information, visit www.lightmatter.co or join us at booth number 511 at SC24 on November 19-21 in Atlanta.

About Lightmatter

Lightmatter is leading a revolution in AI data center infrastructure, enabling the next giant leaps in human progress. The company’s groundbreaking Passage™ platform—the world’s first 3D-stacked silicon photonics engine—connects thousands to millions of processors at the speed of light. Designed to eliminate critical data bottlenecks, Lightmatter’s technology enables unparalleled efficiency and scalability for the most advanced AI and high-performance computing workloads, pushing the boundaries of AI infrastructure.

About Amkor Technology, Inc.

Amkor Technology, Inc. is the world's largest US headquartered OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) service provider. Since its founding in 1968, Amkor has pioneered the outsourcing of IC packaging and test services and is a strategic manufacturing partner for the world's leading semiconductor companies, foundries, and electronics OEMs. Amkor provides turnkey manufacturing services for the communication, automotive and industrial, computing, and consumer industries, including but not limited to smartphones, electric vehicles, data centers, artificial intelligence and wearables. Amkor's operational base includes production facilities, research and development centers, and sales and support offices located in key electronics manufacturing regions in Asia, Europe and the United States. For more information visit amkor.com.

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