News: Optoelectronics
23 March 2026
OpenLight and TFC advance silicon photonics back-end integration supporting up to 400G data rates on TGV substrate
Photonic application-specific integrated circuit (PASIC) chip designer and manufacturer OpenLight of Goleta, Santa Barbara, CA, USA (which launched as an independent company in June 2022, introducing the first open silicon photonics platform with heterogeneously integrated III-V lasers, modulators, amplifiers and detectors) has announced continued progress in its ecosystem partnership with Suzhou TFC Optical Communication Co Ltd (a provider of optical sub-assembly integrated solutions and advanced optoelectronic package manufacturing services), building on the collaboration first announced in 2025 to fast track the back-end process for silicon photonics production and optical communication systems. The partnership remains focused on advancing the integration, assembly and manufacturing workflows required to bring highly integrated silicon photonics optical engines to market, with the OLP-PM13306 400G test board serving as the most recent example of this progress.
The OLP-PM13306 is designed to enable testing and evaluation of OpenLight’s 400G electro-absorption modulator (EAM) by integrating a high-speed driver alongside the photonic integrated circuit (PIC) on a through-glass-via (TGV)-based high-speed printed circuit board (PCB), combined with a low-loss fiber attach unit (FAU). The complete optical sub-assembly — including TGV-based PCB design, FAU integration, and assembly — was designed and manufactured by TFC. This device was showcased in OpenLight’s booth at OFC 2026.
As silicon photonics adoption continues to accelerate across data-center, AI/ML, and emerging optical networking applications, the maturity of the back-end ecosystem has become increasingly critical to support higher levels of photonic integration and increasing per-lane data-rate requirements.
Since the initial partnership announcement at OFC 2025, OpenLight and TFC have expanded the scope of their collaboration to support higher-speed optical engines and evolving integration requirements. TFC has supported optical sub-assembly activities for OpenLight’s 100G- and 200G-per-lane transmitter PICs and this collaboration has now extended to 400G-per-lane devices. These efforts reflect the partnership’s focus on maturing integration and assembly workflows in parallel with increasing data-rate requirements for silicon photonics optical engines.
The OpenLight–TFC collaboration provides customers with an expanded ecosystem option for optical sub-assembly, helping streamline the supply chain from completed wafers through full fiber-attached optical engines. The partnership aims to reduce complexity, improve manufacturability, and support faster time to market.
“As silicon photonics adoption continues to grow, success increasingly depends on the readiness of the back-end ecosystem,” says OpenLight’s CEO Dr Adam Carter. “Our continued collaboration with TFC is focused on enabling practical, scalable integration and assembly workflows that customers will need as optical engines become more highly integrated and move toward production,” he adds.
“TFC is proud to support our customers in the development of the next generation of silicon photonics such as the showcased 400G EAM on TGV substrate” says TFC’s CEO Lucy Ou. “We continued to invest in the key technologies associated with advanced optical sub-assembly, optoelectronic and system integration solutions, leveraging one of our seven global facilities across three countries,” he adds. “By working closely with OpenLight, we are translating advanced photonic integration into scalable manufacturable optical sub-assemblies that can support broader industry adoption.”
OpenLight partners with TFC to fast-track silicon photonics back-end process
