Civan Lasers Launches U.S. Demonstration Labs: Week in Brief: 12/20/24

Civan Lasers, a fiber laser developer, has opened two advanced demonstration labs at welding manufacturer Amet’s Rexburg, Idaho, campus and automated systems developer Photon Automation’s Detroit campus. The company said that the facilities will offer hands-on demonstrations and tailored process development to its customers for its welding solutions.

Members of Civan Lasers and Amet at Civan’s Rexburg, Idaho, demonstration lab. Courtesy of Civan Lasers.

BERNIN, France — Semiconductor materials designer and manufacturer Soitec has renewed its ongoing research collaboration with MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories to diversify technological collaborations and anticipate the future needs of the semiconductor industry. Coinciding with the collaboration, Soitec has been added as a member of the Labs’ industrial advisory board, allowing the company to actively contribute to defining research directions in microelectronics.

KISTA, Sweden — Sivers Semiconductors AB has entered into advanced discussions with its customer Ayar Labs, an optical interconnect solutions company, to partner on the next phase of engagement focused on manufacturing at scale to support deployment of Ayar's in-package optical interconnect solutions. The move will support moving AI datacenters from copper-based interconnects to I/O interconnects and follows Ayar’s securement of $155 million in financing earlier this month for the same reason.

(From left) Local government officials and members of AIXTRON’s executive team at the innovation center’s opening. Courtesy of AIXTRON.

HERZOGENRATH, Germany — Semiconductor deposition equipment provider AIXTRON has opened its new innovation center at its headquarters in Herzogenrath, Germany. The €100 million ($104 million) center features 1000 sq m of cleanroom space capable of developing 300 mm wafers for gallium nitride and other compound semiconductor applications.

Valeo and ams OSRAM’s smart LEDs for dynamic ambient lighting. Courtesy of Valeo.

PARIS — Valeo, an automotive technology company, and ams OSRAM have entered into a collaboration to develop new standards for vehicle interior design and functionality by using ams OSRAM’s OSIRE E3731i intelligent LED and Valeo’s dynamic ambient lighting systems. The companies plan to link the smart LEDs with an open system protocol that will allow microcontrollers to manage a series of intelligent RGB LEDs through a communication framework.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ten of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories will establish the new Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Research with Twins USA (SMART USA) Institution. They join an existing network of seventeen institutes designed to increase U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and promote a robust research and development infrastructure. SMART USA will leverage the digital twin, AI, and computational research capabilities of DOE’s national laboratory complex in collaboration with industry and university partners to lead development of a digital twin backbone for semiconductors. The DOE has also pledged $285 million in CHIPS Act funding towards the institute.

HSINCHU, Taiwan — The U.S. Department of Commerce has issued direct funding awards of up to $406 million to semiconductor wafer supplier GlobalWafers Co., Ltd’s subsidiaries GlobalWafers America, LLC and MEMC LLC under the CHIPS Incentives Program’s Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication Facilities. As part of award terms, GlobalWafers has agreed to convert a portion of its existing silicon epitaxy wafer manufacturing facility in Sherman, Texas, to silicon carbide epitaxy wafer manufacturing.

HOBOKEN, N.J. — Quantum Computing Inc., an integrated photonics and quantum optics technology company, has been awarded a prime contract by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to apply its entropy quantum optimization machine, Dirac-3, to support NASA's advanced imaging and data processing demands. Specifically, the machine will address the challenging phase unwrapping problem for optimally reconstructing images and extracting information from interferometric data generated by radar.

Aurora’s new Bozeman, Montana, facility located at Montana State University’s Innovation Campus. Courtesy of Aurora Innovation.

BOZEMAN, Mont. — Autonomous trucking technology company Aurora Innovation, Inc. has opened a new 78,000 sq ft office and testing facility located on Montana State University’s Innovation Campus in Bozeman, Montana. The facility is designed to support the continued development and testing of Aurora’s proprietary FirstLight lidar technology and includes R&D labs, a manufacturing area with a cleanroom, a garage for vehicle testing, and office and collaboration spaces.

Members of the Quanfluence team. Courtesy of Quanfluence.

BENGALURU, India — Quanfluence, a quantum technology startup, has raised $2 million in a seed funding round led by pi Ventures. The company plans to scale its near-term products and accelerate the development of its quantum computer with the funding. Quanfluence’s core technology includes an optical Ising machine that uses light waves as computational units that can handle 128 interconnected variables, processing about 10 K permutations. It is now testing an advanced version capable of processing 10 to 25 million permutations, scheduled for release Q1 2025.

MANCHESTER, England — Organic thin-film transistors developer Smartkem has received a £900,000 ($1.1 million) grant from Innovate U.K. for its project partnership with display-centric technology company AUO to develop a rollable, transparent microLED display. Part of the 2024 U.K.-Taiwan Collaborative R&D Initiative, the two-year project will commence on Jan. 1, with initial grant payments beginning in the first quarter of 2025.