• GlobalFoundries and Marvell have expanded a multi-year agreement to increase SiGe manufacturing capacity in Burlington, Vermont
  • The capacity will support optical components for pluggable, near-packaged and co-packaged designs, with current technology reaching 200Gbps per lane

The fact

GlobalFoundries and Marvell Technology expanded a multi-year manufacturing agreement on 17 September to increase silicon-germanium, or SiGe, capacity at GlobalFoundries' Burlington, Vermont, facility. The companies said the additional production will support high-speed optical connectivity for AI and cloud data centres.

SiGe is used in high-speed analogue circuitry around optical transceivers, where electrical signals have to be driven and received at increasingly high data rates. GlobalFoundries says its current platform supports optical connectivity at up to 200Gbps per lane.

Marvell plans to use the expanded capacity across pluggable transceivers, near-packaged optics and co-packaged optics. These architectures place optical components progressively closer to the switching silicon. The companies did not disclose how much manufacturing capacity is being added, the investment involved or when the additional volume will become available.

The assessment

The agreement matters because faster switches need more than faster switching silicon. Marvell also needs enough qualified optical components to move those higher data rates between racks and clusters, making foundry capacity part of the delivery schedule for new network equipment.

The architecture changes that dependency. Pluggable optics remain separate modules at the switch faceplate, while near-packaged and co-packaged designs bring optical hardware closer to the switch. That can shorten high-speed electrical connections, but it also ties optical qualification and replacement more closely to the system itself.

For BTW readers, the agreement secures more manufacturing room, but buyers still cannot map that onto delivery schedules because the companies have not quantified the increase. Marvell product qualification and volume production from Burlington will show when the added capacity starts to affect equipment availability.

What to watch

Watch for Marvell to name products using the additional Burlington capacity and for either company to give qualification or volume-production dates. Systems shipping with those parts, particularly near-packaged or co-packaged designs, would show that the manufacturing expansion has moved into deployable network equipment.