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UMC prepares 22nm silicon photonics risk production at Singapore Fab 12i P3
Tuesday, January 20, 2026 at 01:12 AM
UMC is preparing for 22nm risk production of silicon photonics products for Co-Packaged Optics at its Fab 12i P3 facility in Singapore. The foundry is utilizing iSiPP300 technology licensed from Imec, with mass production scheduled to begin in 2027.
Context
United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) is accelerating its push into the AI interconnect market by preparing its Singapore-based Fab 12i P3 for risk production of 22nm silicon photonics. Leveraging the iSiPP300 technology platform licensed from the Belgian research hub Imec, this move enables the foundry to manufacture advanced components for Co-Packaged Optics (CPO). These solutions are essential for modern data centers, significantly lowering power consumption while increasing data transmission speeds for high-performance computing.
The project is currently in the risk production phase, with UMC targeting full-scale mass production by 2027. This timeline aligns with the industry-wide shift toward CPO architectures to handle the massive bandwidth requirements of generative AI. By establishing this capacity in Singapore, UMC positions itself as a critical secondary supplier for cloud service providers and chip designers seeking specialized high-speed networking hardware outside of the leading-edge logic foundries.
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