Fabless silicon photonics firm Skorpios acquires manufacturer Novati

Fabless silicon photonics system-on-chip (SoC) company Skorpios Technologies Inc of Albuquerque, NM, USA has acquired Novati Technologies LLC, a semiconductor integration company with a fabrication plant in Austin, TX.

Skorpios delivers highly integrated products based on its proprietary wafer-scale heterogeneous integration process (which monolithically integrates silicon with III-V gain materials used as the active medium). This hence leverages the existing silicon manufacturing ecosystem to enable high-bandwidth interconnectivity at what are said to be mature CMOS manufacturing costs. The platform can be used to address a wide range of applications, including high-speed video, data and voice communications for networking, cloud computing, consumer, and medical.

Novati’s fab is said to be known for its innovative work in 2.5D/3D integration, photonics, MEMS sensors, and micro fluidics for medical applications. Prior to the acquisition, Skorpios had developed its heterogeneous integration process in collaboration with Novati, and was fabricating its ICs in Novati’s foundry.

Skorpios says that the acquisition gives it the ability to better meet growing demand via:

• vertical integration of its heterogeneous integration process (increasing volume throughput and allowing control of its critical supply chain);
• decreased fab cycle times (by providing access to focused production lines in the foundry); and
• faster time to market (expediting the development of new products, resulting in faster time to market and revenue realization).

“The ability to develop and commercialize products based on our proprietary heterogeneous integration process in our own foundry is the next logical step in the evolution of our company,” says Skorpios’ chairman, founder & CEO Stephen Krasulick. “Skorpios will be well positioned to deliver highly differentiated products with shorter development cycles… There are tremendous synergies between Skorpios’ heterogeneous integration platform and the technologies currently being developed and offered at Novati,” he adds.

“Novati’s highly customized fab solutions are uniquely positioned to support the revolutionary Skorpios products,” says John Hamma, senior VP, Services business unit of Skorpios.

Skorpios says that, after the acquisition, it will immediately ramp up production, starting with its 100Gb QSFP CWDM4 optical transceiver.