TSMC (Photonics Division)

Type: Company (Semiconductor Foundry — Photonics Platform)

TSMC's COUPE (COmpact Universal Photonic Engine) platform is the foundry infrastructure that makes co-packaged optics scalable. By integrating silicon photonics into TSMC's advanced packaging ecosystem (CoWoS, InFO), COUPE allows any TSMC customer to add optical I/O to their chip designs via standard chiplet interfaces — without owning optical fabrication capabilities.

The strategic significance is that TSMC's foundry position creates network effects. When Ayar Labs builds TeraPHY on COUPE, and Alchip designs ASICs for COUPE integration, every Nvidia, AMD, Google, or Amazon chip designed on TSMC processes can now incorporate optical I/O through an established, standardized path. This is how CPO goes from a specialized startup technology to an industry default.

COUPE Platform

• COUPE — COmpact Universal Photonic Engine; TSMC's standardized silicon photonics integration platform
• Integration — EIC-PIC co-packaging within 2.5D CoWoS environment; low insertion loss for grating and edge couplers
• UCIe compatible — Enables optical chiplets alongside standard compute chiplets
• Demonstrated — First fully integrated COUPE-based optical I/O engine: 100 Tb/s per accelerator

Key Contributions

• COUPE platform: 100 Tb/s per accelerator via UCIe (TSMC COUPE)
• EPIC-BOE system: COUPE + COI + iFAU integration in CoWoS packaging (TSMC COUPE)
• Ayar Labs TeraPHY manufactured on COUPE: 200 Tbps/package at 8 Tbps/chiplet (Ayar Labs $500M)

Mentioned In

• Co-Packaged Optics — Foundry platform enabling CPO adoption
• Photonic Interconnects — Manufacturing backbone

Related Entities

• Ayar Labs — TeraPHY optical chiplet built on COUPE
• Lightmatter — Competing CPO approach using different foundry path