Xanadu and Tower Semiconductor expand photonic quantum hardware collaboration

Xanadu and Tower Semiconductor announced an expansion of their collaboration on advanced silicon photonics. The work targets fault tolerant quantum computers and uses Tower high volume silicon photonics platform. It extends earlier joint tapeouts that tested and refined Xanadu designs on Tower process flows. The partners co engineered a production flow for Xanadu custom material stack. This delivers a manufacturing aligned platform for next generation photonic quantum hardware. The stack supports both scalability and performance as systems grow more complex. Christian Weedbrook, founder and CEO of Xanadu, said the collaboration has moved hardware from concept to prototype to demonstrator systems within a scalable manufacturing environment. Dr. Ed Preisler, vice president and general manager of the RF business unit at Tower Semiconductor, said the work supports manufacturable scale. He noted it reinforces the platform applicability across quantum computing, data centers, telecom and automotive applications. Developments now focus on optimizing critical components. These use standard product flows for ultra low loss silicon nitride and integrated photodiodes. The projects allow Xanadu to validate its photonic circuit designs on an established high volume manufacturing platform and meet requirements for large scale photonic quantum computing.