IQE inks multi-year supply deal with Tower Semiconductor

(Sharecast News) - IQE announced on Monday that it has signed a multi-year supply agreement with Tower Semiconductor for indium phosphide epiwafers used in optical connectivity solutions for AI-driven data centre infrastructure. The AIM-traded compound semiconductor wafer supplier said its InP epiwafers would be used in Tower's advanced silicon photonics platforms, including technology for 200Gbs-per-lane pluggable transceivers, prototyping of next-generation 400Gb-per-lane modulators and optical circuit switches for data centres.

The agreement includes minimum purchase commitments from Tower in the first year, reciprocal supply commitments from IQE and minimum volume commitments thereafter.

IQE said a separate agreement would also resolve all prior intellectual property disputes between the companies, with Tower granting IQE a broad worldwide royalty-free licence for porous silicon patents.

Chief executive Jutta Meier said the deal reinforced IQE's position in "Tier 1 global hyperscale cloud and AI infrastructure markets", while Tower president Dr Marco Racanelli said the partnership would support products capable of delivering "both the performance and high volumes required to scale future AI infrastructure capacity".

At 1355 BST, shares in IQE were up 24.97% at 57.8p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

See latest RNS on Investegate