REG - IQE PLC - IQE and Quintessent partner on Quantum Dot for AI

IqeAnnouncement

24/01/2025 07:00

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RNS Number : 5333U  IQE PLC  24 January 2025

IQE plc

 

 

Cardiff, UK

24 January 2025

 

 

IQE and Quintessent partner on Quantum Dot for AI

 

-     Partners establish commercial quantum dot epitaxial wafer supply
chain for AI optical interconnects

IQE plc (AIM:  IQE, "IQE" or the "Group"), the leading global supplier of
compound semiconductor wafer products and advanced material solutions, has
strengthened its partnership with Quintessent Inc., a pioneer in quantum dot
laser technology and heterogeneous silicon photonics, to establish the world's
first large-scale quantum dot laser ("QDL") and semiconductor optical
amplifier (SOA) epitaxial wafer supply chain. This milestone is backed by an
initial purchase order of $0.5m for delivery of production wafers to
Quintessent through 2025.

The rapid expansion of AI-driven applications has placed significant
requirement in data centres power consumption driving the migration from
copper chip to chip connectivity to Silicon Photonics. This has created an
increasing demand for high-bandwidth, low-latency, energy-efficient and highly
reliable optical interconnects. Traditional laser technologies struggle to
meet these requirements, making QDLs and SOAs a critical innovation for future
AI infrastructure which offer superior performance, including extended
lifetimes, improved efficiency, lower noise and greater resilience to
environmental fluctuations.

IQE and Quintessent have collaborated for over a decade to transition QDL
technology from research to large-scale production. Building on research
breakthroughs from John Bower's laboratory at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, the partnership has successfully developed highly optimised and
high performing gain GaAs-based quantum dot epitaxial wafers on 6-inch
substrates versus state of the art 4-inch art indium phosphide lasers. This
achievement enables the production of hundreds of millions of high-performance
edge-emitting lasers annually.

Jutta Meier, Interim CEO and Chief Financial Officer of IQE, commented:

"IQE is proud to strengthen our long-standing partnership with Quintessent,
driving the commercialisation of QDL technology. This commitment highlights
our expertise in high-volume epitaxial wafer manufacturing and our proven
ability to scale innovative semiconductor solutions into production. Our
collaboration, spanning commercial products and DoD programs has delivered QDL
wafers with exceptional reproducibility and lasing performance"

Alan Liu, CEO and co-founder, Quintessent, commented:

"The performance, cost, and reliability advantages that quantum dot-based
lasers and amplifiers enable over their quantum well counterparts are exactly
what our customers are demanding to address the soaring need for optical
connectivity in AI driven compute. Through our partnership with IQE, we have
brought this transformative technology to scale, positioning us to be the
leader in delivering solutions leveraging quantum dot laser and SOA
technology."

With this partnership, IQE continues to set the industry benchmark for
cutting-edge epitaxy solutions, further positioning itself as a key enabler of
next-generation AI and optical computing technologies.

Contacts:

 

IQE plc

+44 (0) 29 2083 9400

Mark Cubitt

Jutta Meier

Amy Barlow

 

Peel Hunt (Nomad and Joint Broker)

+44 (0) 20 7418 8900

Ben Cryer

Kate Bannatyne

Adam Telling

 

Deutsche Numis (Joint Broker)

+44 (0) 20 7260 1000

Simon Willis

Hugo Rubinstein

Iqra Amin

 

Headland Consultancy (Financial PR)
+ 44 (0) 20 38054822

Andy Rivett-Carnac: +44 (0) 7968 997 365

Chloe Francklin: +44 (0)78 3497 4624

ABOUT IQE

http://iqep.com
(https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=yZf7NKp1JKLALUCxlBuC8wkLnLAqoe5-kjjIlkMIDci9q9W0x_02bwZV-eorSbpLXZxy4zi3xHh-O4FM8nWjeg==)

 

IQE is the leading global supplier of advanced compound semiconductor wafers
and materials solutions that enable a diverse range of applications across:

 

·     Smart Connected Devices

·     Communications Infrastructure

·     Automotive and Industrial

·     Aerospace and Security

 

As a scaled global epitaxy wafer manufacturer, IQE is uniquely positioned in
this market which has high barriers to entry. IQE supplies the global market
and is enabling customers to innovate at chip and OEM level. By leveraging the
Group's intellectual property portfolio including know-how and patents, it
produces epitaxy wafers of superior quality, yield and unit economics.

IQE is headquartered in Cardiff UK, with employees across manufacturing
locations in the UK, US and Taiwan, and is listed on the AIM Stock Exchange in
London.

 

About Quintessent Inc.:

http://quintessent.com (http://quintessent.com)

Quintessent is solving the foundational bottlenecks limiting the scalability
and reliability of optical connectivity required by next-generation AI and
computing infrastructure. Leveraging multiple innovations that span
high-performance quantum dot materials, photonic integrated circuit design,
and system-optimized link architecture, Quintessent's technology slashes power
consumption and packaging complexity while achieving multiplicative increases
in both bandwidth density and reliability - unlocking the massive scaling
needed for future AI applications.

Quintessent is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California.

 

 

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