Himax Invests in, Collaborates with Fiber Interconnect Specialist FOCI

Himax Technologies, a fabless semiconductor solutions provider, has made a $522 million NTD (~$16.1 million) investment in FOCI Fiber Optic Communications, Inc., a fiber optic components manufacturer. The move comes after FOCI board members approved the issuance of 5,000,000 shares of common stock in a private placement financing through its Taiwan subsidiary Himax Technologies Limited. Upon completion of the investment, Himax will hold a 5.3% equity stake in FOCI.

The companies will also enter into a collaboration as a part of the investment, centering on the integration of FOCI’s co-packaged optics (CPO) and Himax’s wafer level optics (WLO) into multi-chip modules. The modules will be used in applications such as high-performance computing, cloud servers, artificial general intelligence, industrial digitization, healthcare, and academic research.

Per the deal, Himax’s WLO technology will be integrated into FOCI’s ReLFACon CPO connectors, which are used to install optical fiber array connectors in CPO components.