Tower Semiconductor and Xanadu, a photonic quantum computing company, announced an expansion of their collaboration to develop advanced silicon photonics for fault-tolerant quantum computers using Tower’s high-volume silicon photonics platform.
The expansion builds on previous joint technical work, including multiple successful tapeouts to test and refine Xanadu’s designs on Tower Semiconductor’s process flows. The companies have co-engineered a unique production flow for Xanadu’s custom material stack, creating a manufacturing-aligned platform compatible with Xanadu’s architecture for next-generation photonic quantum hardware.
This custom stack supports scalability and performance as systems increase in complexity, addressing requirements for large-scale quantum information processing.
Current efforts focus on optimizing critical components with standard product flows for ultra-low loss silicon nitride (SiN) and integrated photodiodes. These activities enable Xanadu to validate photonic circuit designs on a high-volume manufacturing platform. The collaboration aims to meet manufacturability needs for commercial-scale photonic quantum computing systems.
Christian Weedbrook, Founder and CEO of Xanadu, stated: “Our work with Tower has been instrumental in moving our hardware from concept to prototype to demonstrator systems within a scalable manufacturing environment. By combining our architectural breakthroughs, fabrication process engineering and design innovations with Tower’s world-class technology and manufacturing expertise, we are building the foundation for a truly useful quantum computer.”
Dr. Ed Preisler, Vice President and General Manager of RF Business Unit at Tower Semiconductor, stated: “Xanadu is advancing one of the most scalable quantum architectures in the industry, and we’re pleased to deepen our collaboration to support manufacturable scale. This reinforces the broad applicability of our platform across multiple advanced domains including quantum computing, data centers, telecom and automotive applications.”
