GlobalFoundries (NASDAQ:GFS) used a business webinar focused on silicon photonics and advanced packaging to argue that optical interconnect is becoming a required layer of AI data center infrastructure, and to outline how the company is positioning its technology platforms and manufacturing footprint to capture that shift. The event featured remarks from Chief Business Officer Mike Hogan, Chief Technology Officer Gregg Bartlett, and Senior Vice President of Silicon Photonics Kevin Soukup, moderated by Head of Investor Relations Eric Chow.
AI data centers shift the bottleneck to connectivity
Hogan said AI has changed data center requirements by shifting network load toward “east-west traffic,” or data moving between machines inside the data center, rather than traditional “north-south” user-to-server patterns. In AI systems, he said GPUs and other accelerators must constantly exchange data to train and run large models, making machine-to-machine communication a dominant driver of performance.
Hogan said optical interconnect can enable utilization of compute resources to rise significantly, and emphasized that the move to optical is a broad industry direction rather than a GlobalFoundries-specific view. He said the industry is debating how fast specific form factors—such as pluggables, onboard optics, and co-packaged optics (CPO)—will grow, but characterized the overall trend as an “optical era.”
GlobalFoundries’ silicon photonics positioning and product coverage
Soukup said the company’s approach combines technology development, design enablement, and manufacturing scale. He highlighted a silicon photonics device portfolio including modulators, broadband couplers, and integration features such as through-silicon vias (TSVs). He also pointed to design support, including what he described as the industry’s leading silicon photonics process design kit (PDK), along with partnerships across EDA, test, fiber, and assembly.
Soukup said GlobalFoundries manufactures silicon photonics on both 300 mm and 200 mm platforms, with production in New York and Singapore, and positioned that dual-region capability as important for supply chain resilience and scaling.
In terms of end-market coverage, Soukup said the company is shipping into 400G and 800G ZR+ solutions and 1.6 terabit coherent interface modules for long-range and coherent applications. For scale-out data center networks, he said GlobalFoundries enables DR4 and DR8 architectures scaling to 1.6T, 3.2T, and beyond. For scale-up systems, he said the company has enabled bidirectional coarse and dense wavelength-division multiplexing optical engines using microring modulator technology, and described GlobalFoundries as first to demonstrate manufacturability of photonic resonance structures and viability of DWDM architectures.
Acquisitions and manufacturing expansion tied to CPO
Soukup said targeted acquisitions made late last year were intended to accelerate the technology roadmap and revenue trajectory. He described the acquisition of AMF as expanding manufacturing scale and geographic reach, accelerating Singapore production capacity and broadening the customer base. He also said customers gained through AMF are engaging with GlobalFoundries on silicon photonics and on silicon germanium and FDX technologies. Soukup said the company expects additional revenue and cost synergies as AMF is integrated, and referenced plans for a center of excellence in Singapore in partnership with the Institute of Microelectronics.
He also discussed the acquisition of InfiniLink, describing it as a specialized design team based in Cairo that adds photonics control, modulator enhancement IP, and system-level expertise. Soukup said the team is already engaged in customer support and in pushing new design innovations.
Advanced packaging: bridging electronics and optics
Bartlett focused on co-packaged optics and said a CPO optical module integrates an electronic IC (EIC), a photonic IC (PIC), and a fiber-coupling optical interface. He said that vertical stacking of EIC and PIC can reduce footprint and improve performance and power, but that CPO packaging requires processes that bridge electronic packaging and optics, including wafer-level detachable fiber coupling.
Bartlett said GlobalFoundries plans to launch a silicon photonics and advanced packaging facility in 2025 in Malta, New York, aimed at establishing high-volume manufacturing to support a CPO ramp. He said the investment is expected to create an integrated production flow “from silicon substrate to known good optical modules,” shortening cycle time and improving feedback from wafer fabrication to module yield.
He also described additional advanced packaging use cases beyond optics, including wafer-to-wafer bonding solutions already qualified and running for silicon photonics and RFSOI. Examples he cited included:
- A fusion-bonded solution bonding an EIC wafer to a PIC wafer as an enabler for CPO
- Bonding two 9SW RF switch platform wafers for RFSOI, which he said can reduce effective die size by as much as 45%
- Development work bonding a silicon germanium HBT to an ultra-low power FDX platform for TIAs and drivers
- Demonstrated high-yield bonding of gallium nitride micro-LEDs to an FDX backplane, with potential display applications and possible data center interconnect implications
During Q&A, Bartlett said the company was not ready to provide clear total addressable market figures for advanced packaging opportunities outside optical modules, but described advanced packaging as a “force multiplier” for combining differentiated technologies across product lines.
Market opportunity and outlook cited by executives
Hogan said GlobalFoundries is scaling within existing cleanroom space and referenced U.S. and Singapore government partnerships supporting deployment. He said the company’s geographically diverse footprint and ability to serve multiple generations of solutions across 200 mm and 300 mm technologies are advantages for customers ramping to meet demand.
He also shared several market and company trajectory estimates discussed during the webinar:
- By 2030, GlobalFoundries’ serviceable addressable market in communications, infrastructure, and data center is expected to more than double to approximately $11 billion.
- The company expects the optical networking SAM to grow at roughly a 40% CAGR through the end of the decade, and said it expects its share to grow.
- Management said silicon photonics revenue doubled in 2025 and is expected to nearly double again in 2026, with a “clear line of sight” to a $1 billion-plus run rate by the end of 2028.
In response to analyst questions on competitive positioning, Hogan said GlobalFoundries believes it is the largest silicon photonics foundry player, and pointed to more than $1 billion of investment over the past decade, support for 200 mm and 300 mm manufacturing, and an ecosystem spanning EDA and fiber attach partners. Soukup added that the company supports a range of applications and cited first-to-market demonstrations in bidirectional DWDM. In response to questions about comparisons with other foundry approaches, Bartlett emphasized what he called a “PIC-first” mindset and support for CWDM and DWDM from the start, while also stating support for an open ecosystem and the ability to integrate with external electronic IC wafers.
Chow closed the webinar by reminding participants that the company plans to host an in-person Investor Day on May 7 in New York City, where executives will provide updates on technical, strategic, and financial opportunities.
About GlobalFoundries (NASDAQ:GFS)
GlobalFoundries, Inc (NASDAQ: GFS) is a leading contract semiconductor manufacturer that provides wafer fabrication and related services to semiconductor companies and systems manufacturers. The company operates as a pure-play foundry, producing integrated circuits across a range of process technologies for customers in markets such as automotive, communications, consumer electronics, industrial, and aerospace. Its service offering spans process development, manufacturing, test and packaging support, and design enablement including process design kits (PDKs) and intellectual property (IP) libraries to help customers bring designs to production.
GlobalFoundries focuses on a portfolio of differentiated and specialty process nodes, offering technologies for radio-frequency (RF) and wireless, analog and mixed-signal, power management, embedded non-volatile memory, and silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process families.
