HiLight Semiconductor targets 100-Gbps CMOS ICs via $2 million EC grant

HiLight Semiconductor Ltd. says it has received a European Commission grant of €1.774 million (approximately $2 million) to help develop ultra low-power integrated circuits for 100-Gbps transmission. The devices will target data center network applications.

The company says that part of the money will go toward expansion of its design teams in Southampton and Bristol, which will aid the development of both receiver PMD (combining TIA, LA, and CDR) and transmitter PMD (driver plus CDR) 100-Gbps devices. HiLight says the chips should reach the initial sampling stage in early 2017. The company adds it seeks technical and commercial cooperation opportunities at 100 Gbps and beyond in connection with the chipset's development.

The market for 100-Gbps communications in the data center is certainly heating up. "The hyperscale data center market requires every effort to reduce power consumption, and LightCounting believes HiLight's CMOS solutions could make a vital impact on power consumption within data centers," said Vladimir Kozlov, founder and CEO of LightCounting, via a HiLight press release.

The 100-Gbp program will build on HiLight's work at 10 Gbps for SFP+ optical transceiver applications. This includes the HLC10V0 combined 11.3-Gbps VCSEL and DML driver with integrated limiting amplifier receiver and the HLR10G0 12-Gbps TIA for 10GbE and 12G CPRI applications. Both of these are in production. In addition, the HLR10G1 11.3-Gbps APD TIA for 10G PON applications is now sampling.

HiLight Semiconductor Ltd is a venture capital backed, fabless chip company, founded in 2012. The company says it has shipped more than 15 million ICs and expects to reach the 20 million mark before the end of this year.

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