Marvel Fusion Closes $70M Funding Round: Week in Brief: 9/27/24

Photonics.com
Sep 2024ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Sept. 27, 2024 — Jabil will add capabilities to its facility outside Ottawa, Ontario, as the company makes continued investment in silicon photonics-based products and capabilities to support the increasing demands of hyperscalers and next-wave cloud and AI data center growth. A product introduction line will feature capabilities such as fluxless flip-chip, fiber attachment, precise die bonding, and wire bonding designed to assist photonics customers scale from proof of concept to mass production. These advancements, announced concurrent to a facility expansion, will support silicon photonics chip packaging, particularly in high-speed connectivity applications such as co-packaged optics and high-speed on-board connections.

FRANKFURT, Germany — Telecommunications company Softbank and integrated photonics developer NewPhotonics LTD entered into a joint R&D collaboration to advance photonics technologies for linear-drive pluggable optics, co-packaged optics, and all-optics switch fabric. The technologies support SoftBank in AI datacenter and mobile fronthaul infrastructure with NewPhotonics’ patented technologies, coupled with its photonic integrated circuits for all-optics communication and optical fabric switching. The technology will address power consumption and capacity bottlenecks in AI cluster workloads based on high-speed optical communication and optical switching technology, the collaborators said.

Marvel Fusion will use newly-awarded funding to continue demonstration of its fusion concept and achieve full proof of technology by 2027. Courtesy of Marvel Fusion.

MUNICH — Marvel Fusion closed a €62.8 million ($70.3 million) financing round that will enable the company to continue demonstrating its fusion concept at existing laser facilities and achieve full proof of technology at its Colorado facility by 2027. Marvel said that it was also selected by the European Innovation Council and SME's Executive Agency for its accelerator program, which entails a €2.5 million grant to scale fuel target production along with an equity investment of up to €15 million.

Ansys’ collaboration with TSMC targets integrating AI to accelerate 3D-IC designs. Courtesy of Ansys.

PITTSBURGH — Ansys and TSMC expanded an ongoing collaboration to leverage AI for advancing 3D integrated circuit (3D-IC) design, and to develop next generation multiphysics solutions for a wider array of advanced semiconductor technologies. The companies developed new workflows to analyze 3D-IC, photonic, electromagnetic, and radio frequency designs while achieving higher productivity. Independent of its collaboration with Ansys, TSMC additionally extended its collaboration with Siemens Digital Industries Software through new development projects, product certifications, and technology enablement for the foundry’s silicon process and advanced packaging technologies.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — OpenLight, a photonic application-specific integrated circuit chip designer and manufacturer, entered into a strategic partnership with Epiphany, a fabless photonic design house. The partnership aims to advance the photonic integrated circuit (PIC) design ecosystem. Through this partnership, Epiphany will gain access to OpenLight’s open heterogeneously integrated III-V-based process design kit. OpenLight will benefit from broadened design possibilities for PIC solutions across datacom, lidar, AI, healthcare, and quantum computing, according to the company.

PALAISEAU, France — Biological and chemical monitoring systems company InSpek secured €6 million (~$6.7 million) in funding for the acceleration of biomanufacturing. The funding includes €3.5 million in seed investment complemented by a €2.5 million accelerator grant from the European Innovation Council. The company’s optical on-chip sensors enable real-time, noninvasive process monitoring for industries including biopharma, biofuels, and sustainable manufacturing.

RIT is developing quantum photonic wafers to aid in building an entangled network. Courtesy of Rochester Institute of Technology.

RIT is developing quantum photonic wafers to aid in building an entangled network. Courtesy of Rochester Institute of Technology.

Rochester Institute of Technology is developing quantum photonic wafers to aid in building an entangled network. Courtesy of Rochester Institute of Technology.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Rochester Institute of Technology received $3.97 million from the Northeast Regional Defense Technology Hub, which is part of a four-year award potentially worth nearly $10 million as the research progresses. The funding will be focused on scaling the power of quantum systems by developing a heterogeneous quantum network that aims to link ion-based qubits and photonic-based qubits at high speed using photonic chips.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Lightwave Logic, Inc. entered into a collaboration with Polariton Technologies, a manufacturer of plasmonic photonic integrated circuits, to demonstrate a packaged device with over 110 GHz super-high bandwidth packaged electro-optic polymer modulators. The demonstration uses Polariton's plasmonic modulator device design, and the packaged device contains a plasmonic modulator using electro-optic polymer material and platform chips that have demonstrated 400 Gbps.

ORLANDO, Fla. — LightPath Technologies secured a $3.5 million follow-on order to provide advanced infrared optics for the F-35 combat aircraft program. The optical design uses the company's BlackDiamond “BD6” chalcogenide material in an infrared imaging system for threat detection and situational awareness.

WALTHAM, Mass. — Nano Dimension Ltd., an additive manufacturing company, agreed to acquire all outstanding shares of fellow additive manufacturing company Markforged in an all-cash transaction. The aggregate total consideration payable to Markforged’s shareholders is $115 million at $5 per share.

MONMOUTH JUNCTION, N.J. — Indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) imaging technology developer Princeton Infrared Technologies, Inc. was selected by the Space Development Agency for a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research contract. The research is focused on the development of uncooled MWIR and LWIR imaging using custom InGaAs detector array based on nondegenerate two photon absorption technology. The team, with members from the University of California Irvine, will deliver a 1280 x 1024 resolution camera using a custom “In x Al 1-xy Ga y As” array integrated with specialty wide spectral optics.

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