Marco Polo posted this, worth another LQQk, he nailed it on AMF as one of the Foundries, I believe he has a couple other of them right as well!!
Following the bread crumbs might give us a sense of the possible foundry partners getting close to a possible contract. This is speculation but speculation based on leadership in silicon photonics, location and a approval by Pozo after the recent PIC conference (you can listen to "Pozo knows" by Mdk1 sticky note starting at 3 min.). He called out leading photonic foundries at PIC: Tower, GFS, Smart Photonics, AMF, IMEC, Ligentec, LioniX and Infinera. Many here have speculated the number of foundries working with LWLG with could very well be seven by now possibly more. They could be in various stages of development but at least five got to be close based on time they have been involved.
The map from a year ago placed foundries in the U.S. and Europe. Perhaps Lightwave is staying with that criteria as they start out. Asia does have AMF (Singapore) and of course TSMC, the big one. Leading foundries meeting the map locations of the U.S. and Europe would be the remaining seven off Pozo's List. We might be calling some of them as being part of the Magnificent Seven in the near future.
Smart Photonics is Netherland based (Dr. Lebby likes the Netherlands). From their website they have open foundry access with flexible PDKs being available to chip designers.
LioniX looks interesting, also based in the Netherlands. Their photonic chips have a wide amount of potential applications in quantum computing, AR/VR, photonic biosensing, high frequency signal processing, so they have designs on Telecom, Datacom and computing applicatioins.
IMEC is based in Belgium. They do smaller batch manufacture (up to 1000 wafers per year and refer the PDK to a larger foundry if more is required. They work with silicon nitride PICs. They appear to be a good research partner for companies starting out.
Ligentec based in Switzerland also works with silicon nitride PICS. Their website suggests they are working on Lidar, biosensing and quantum systems.
Infinera based in California works with indium phosphide PICS. They are working in fixed line and mobile applications. Interestingly their website advertises their offerings will reduce chip footprints, cost, power consumption, while improving performance and reliability. Who does that sound like?
Tower is big. They have locations in the U.S. Japan and Israel. They work with analog chips mainly filling needs for automotive,medical, industrial aerospace and datacom. They will work with SiGe chips. Besides analog chips they are expanding into silicon photonic chips.
AMF based in Singapore works with silicon nitride chips, it seems small batch, looking at AR/VR, sensing and Lidar. Asia location might make them less likely partnering early. Dr. Lebby has said LWLG will only work with companies they are comfortable with. Singapore is independent of China but I am not sure he is ready to branch out to Asia as yet.
I have said GFS is quite likely. The ones above are contenders. I like the way Ligentec speaks to their advantages similar to LWLG. LioniX would be a nice capture as would Tower. This should play out over the next 6 months.
Bullish