Nvidia-backed Scintil Photonics begins shipping AI laser chips
Scintil Photonics, a French startup backed by Nvidia, has begun providing laser chips to customers for testing. The company is developing optical technology to move data using light instead of electrical signals, aiming to ease linking many chips together in AI servers. Analysts expect Nvidia to reveal more about its co-packaged optics plans at its developer conference in Silicon Valley next week.
The development addresses a critical supply constraint in the AI hardware market. Laser chips made with indium phosphide are currently not produced in large enough volumes to meet data center demand. Nvidia invested $2 billion each in laser makers Lumentum and Coherent earlier this month to address this shortage.
Scintil secured funding from Nvidia in a $58 million funding round last year. The company partnered with Israel-based Tower Semiconductor to package indium phosphide lasers with other optical communication elements into a single chip. This integration aims to simplify the manufacturing process for AI server components.
Scintil’s CEO Matt Crowley said the company is in discussions with six to seven companies that want to use its technology by 2028. Crowley stated that Scintil aims to produce hundreds of thousands of chips per month by that year. He declined to name the potential customers, citing nondisclosure agreements.
Crowley said the company’s manufacturing method is fundamentally different from existing approaches. He stated that Scintil can mass produce the chips and satisfy a big chunk of the market demand.