IQE
plc
Cardiff, UK
24 January 2025
IQE and Quintessent partner
on Quantum Dot for AI
- Partners establish commercial quantum dot
epitaxial wafer supply chain for AI optical
interconnects
IQE plc (AIM: IQE, "IQE" or the
"Group"), the leading global supplier of
compound semiconductor wafer products and advanced material
solutions, has strengthened its partnership with
Quintessent Inc., a pioneer in quantum dot
laser technology and heterogeneous silicon
photonics, to establish the world's first
large-scale quantum dot laser ("QDL") and semiconductor optical
amplifier (SOA) epitaxial wafer supply chain. This milestone is
backed by an initial purchase order of $0.5m for delivery of
production wafers to Quintessent through 2025.
The rapid expansion of AI-driven applications
has placed significant requirement in data centres power
consumption driving the migration from copper chip to chip
connectivity to Silicon Photonics. This has created an increasing
demand for high-bandwidth, low-latency, energy-efficient and highly
reliable optical interconnects. Traditional laser technologies
struggle to meet these requirements, making QDLs and SOAs a
critical innovation for future AI infrastructure which offer
superior performance, including extended lifetimes, improved
efficiency, lower noise and greater resilience to environmental
fluctuations.
IQE and Quintessent have collaborated for over
a decade to transition QDL technology from research to large-scale
production. Building on research breakthroughs from John Bower's
laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the
partnership has successfully developed highly optimised and high
performing gain GaAs-based quantum dot epitaxial wafers on 6-inch
substrates versus state of the art 4-inch art indium phosphide
lasers. This achievement enables the production of hundreds of
millions of high-performance edge-emitting lasers
annually.
Jutta Meier, Interim CEO and Chief
Financial Officer of IQE, commented:
"IQE is proud to strengthen
our long-standing partnership with Quintessent, driving the
commercialisation of QDL technology. This commitment highlights our
expertise in high-volume epitaxial wafer manufacturing and our
proven ability to scale innovative semiconductor solutions into
production. Our collaboration, spanning commercial products and DoD
programs has delivered QDL wafers with exceptional reproducibility
and lasing performance"
Alan Liu, CEO and co-founder, Quintessent,
commented:
"The
performance, cost, and reliability advantages that quantum
dot-based lasers and amplifiers enable over their quantum well
counterparts are exactly what our customers are demanding to
address the soaring need for optical connectivity in AI driven
compute. Through our partnership with IQE, we have brought this
transformative technology to scale, positioning us to be the leader
in delivering solutions leveraging quantum dot laser and SOA
technology."
With this partnership, IQE continues to set the
industry benchmark for cutting-edge epitaxy solutions, further
positioning itself as a key enabler of next-generation AI and
optical computing technologies.
Contacts:
IQE
plc
+44 (0) 29 2083 9400
Mark Cubitt
Jutta Meier
Amy Barlow
Peel Hunt (Nomad and Joint Broker)
+44 (0) 20 7418 8900
Ben Cryer
Kate Bannatyne
Adam Telling
Deutsche Numis (Joint Broker)
+44 (0) 20 7260 1000
Simon Willis
Hugo Rubinstein
Iqra Amin
Headland Consultancy (Financial PR)
+ 44 (0) 20
38054822
Andy Rivett-Carnac: +44 (0) 7968 997
365
Chloe Francklin: +44 (0)78 3497
4624
ABOUT IQE
http://iqep.com
IQE is the leading global supplier
of advanced compound semiconductor wafers and materials solutions
that enable a diverse range of applications across:
·
Smart Connected Devices
·
Communications Infrastructure
·
Automotive and Industrial
·
Aerospace and Security
As a scaled global epitaxy wafer
manufacturer, IQE is uniquely positioned in this market which has
high barriers to entry. IQE supplies the global market and is
enabling customers to innovate at chip and OEM level. By leveraging
the Group's intellectual property portfolio including know-how and
patents, it produces epitaxy wafers of superior quality, yield and
unit economics.
IQE is headquartered in Cardiff UK, with employees across
manufacturing locations in the UK, US and Taiwan, and is listed on
the AIM Stock Exchange in London.
About Quintessent
Inc.:
http://quintessent.com
Quintessent is solving the
foundational bottlenecks limiting the scalability and reliability
of optical connectivity required by next-generation AI and
computing infrastructure. Leveraging multiple innovations that span
high-performance quantum dot materials, photonic integrated circuit
design, and system-optimized link architecture, Quintessent's
technology slashes power consumption and packaging complexity while
achieving multiplicative increases in both bandwidth density and
reliability - unlocking the massive scaling needed for future AI
applications.
Quintessent is headquartered in
Santa Barbara, California.