Lightium AG

Lightium AG is a Swiss deep-tech company founded in 2023 that provides a production-grade foundry and design services for Thin-Film Lithium Lithium Niobate (TFLN) Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs). Its foundry runs on a 200 mm wafer platform at industrial scale and is offered through an open-access model, allowing external photonic device manufacturers to move from rapid prototyping to large-volume manufacturing. The company also offers PIC design services built on its own TFLN platform.

The technology targets high-speed optical links: devices on the platform reach modulation speeds exceeding 100 GHz, supporting data rates of 1.6 or 3.2 Tb/s and speeds ten times or more above traditional semiconductor-based interconnects. Addressed application areas include telecom and datacom, data centres, AI, quantum computing, space and LIDAR.

Lightium was founded by researchers and academics - Dr. Amir Ghadimi, Dr. Frédéric Loizeau and MIT professor Prof. Dirk Englng - with ties to MIT and a research-driven background. The company operates in Switzerland and across Europe, and espouses an open-access foundry philosophy intended to let outside device manufacturers innovate and scale on its platform.

Lightium positions its work against projections that data centres will handle 100 times more data by 2030 and may consume up to 10% of the world's electricity by that year.