CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & HSINCHU, Taiwan, March 13 — HyperLight Corporation (“HyperLight”), United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC; TWSE: 2303)(“UMC”), and Wavetek Microelectronics Corporation (“Wavetek”), a wholly owned subsidiary of UMC, today announced a collaboration with Jabil Inc. (“Jabil”), to accelerate the deployment of thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics into hyperscale AI data center interconnects. The collaboration brings together HyperLight’s TFLN photonic technology, UMC and Wavetek’s qualified foundry manufacturing, and Jabil’s expertise in high-volume manufacturing and assembly to support deployment of next-generation optical modules at data-center scale.
As AI clusters grow, optical interconnects must deliver higher bandwidth without becoming a power bottleneck. HyperLight and Jabil have worked closely to integrate TFLN-based photonic devices into next-generation optical transceiver platforms. Backed by scalable 6-inch and 8-inch wafer manufacturing capabilities of UMC and Wavetek, and leveraging Jabil’s expertise in supply chain management and system integration, this collaboration paves the way for mass market adoption of HyperLight’s TFLN Chiplet™ Platform for energy efficient optical modules suitable for hyperscale data center environments.
“TFLN provides a significant advantage to AI data center networking through reduced power consumption and lower laser requirements,” said Mian Zhang, CEO of HyperLight. “TFLN’s fundamental material benefits only grow as optical interconnect speeds scale. With Jabil driving system integration and manufacturing execution, and with UMC and Wavetek supporting scalable device production, we are moving TFLN from innovation into practical, high-volume deployment for hyperscale data centers today.”
“Hyperscale and AI customers must deploy at scale. They are looking for optical technologies that can be manufactured, integrated, and deployed reliably at data-center volumes,” said Jason Wildt, General Manager and Vice President of Photonics at Jabil. “Our collaboration with HyperLight, UMC, and Wavetek brings together advanced photonics, proven manufacturing at scale, and system integration capabilities, enabling TFLN-based solutions to be deployed at the rack level for AI and hyperscale customers.”
“UMC has supported the transition of TFLN from early development into qualified foundry manufacturing through our work with HyperLight,” said G C Hung, Senior Vice President at UMC. “By extending this collaboration to include system-level integration with Jabil, we are helping establish a complete manufacturing and deployment path that supports the scale, reliability, and capacity requirements of AI data center infrastructure.”
For current-generation optical modules, HyperLight’s TFLN technology can deliver meaningful power savings compared to incumbent approaches, with advantages that strengthen as lane speeds increase. In target architectures, TFLN enables designs that reduce optical complexity, including lower laser count, helping address both power and supply constraints. At hyperscale, these per-module improvements compound into data-center-level power headroom that can be redeployed toward higher GPU density, larger clusters, or incremental AI workloads.
