Tower Semiconductor, NewPhotonics Begin Volume Shipments of AI Optical Engine Chips

06:57 AM EDT, 09/17/2026 (MT Newswires) -- Tower Semiconductor (TSEM) and NewPhotonics have started high-volume shipments of laser-integrated optical engine photonic integrated circuits for artificial intelligence infrastructure, the companies said Thursday. The photonic IC chips use lasers and other optical components built into a single chip and are designed for external pluggable transceivers and near-packaged optics applications supporting scale-out and scale-up AI architectures, the companies said. The first products support data speeds of 800 gigabits and 1.6 terabits. The products use NewPhotonics' NPG102 platform with 200G-per-lane designs and heterogeneously integrated lasers, according to the companies The companies plan to begin volume shipments of 6.4T NPC505 chipsets in H1 2027. Shares of Tower Semiconductor were 6.8% higher in Thursday premarket activity.