Lightium

Bandwidth, not compute, is the bottleneck. At Lightium, we’re solving it at the manufacturing level. Next week at PIC Summit Europe 2025 (Nov 4–5, Eindhoven), we’re bringing a full team to talk shop, meet partners, and share how we’re scaling Thin-Film Lithium Niobate (TFLN) for the real-world demands of telecom and datacom. 📢 Our CEO, Amir H. Ghadimi, will take the stage with a talk on: “Breaking the Bottleneck: High-Volume Manufacturing of TFLN PICs for Telecom & Datacom” If you're building next-gen optical links, systems, or infrastructure => let’s connect. Reach out to our team on-site: Amir H. Ghadimi, Hadj Achoukhi, Luca Berchialla, Moïse SOTTO, Mathieu Bertrand, Mircea-Traian Cătuneanu #PICSummitEurope #Eindhoven #IntegratedPhotonics #TFLN #Lightium

We left the fab for the Alps. Last weekend, the full Lightium team came together for our first-ever company retreat. 20+ people, one chalet, two days to take a step back and set the course for 2026. No Zoom, no fiber alignment. Just a dream location, much melted cheese, and the space to reflect on everything we’ve built in the past year, and what’s coming in 2026. There were hikes, burnt pans, saunas, late-night laughs, and a surprisingly competitive spaghetti bridge contest (some structural failures, zero injuries). We also ran a few intense workshops, the kind that only work when everyone’s in the same room. More than anything, it was a chance to connect as people, not just coworkers. And that matters, because building a company is just as much about trust and relationships as it is about technology. If you’re a partner, customer, or future teammate: this is the kind of team you’re working with. Ready for what’s next. #Lightium #Photonics #TeamRetreat #SwissAlps #MySwitzerland

📡 Microwave photonics is pushing into the next performance tier, and TFLN is one of the few platforms keeping up. On October 20th at ETH Zürich, our own Marta Kisielewska will be speaking at the CADFEM Europe event "Photonics and Radio Frequency Simulations for Industry and Academia". 🗣 Talk: Microwave Photonics with TFLN Platform 📍 ETHZ, Zentrum Campus 🕘 13:30–17:00 At Lightium, Marta leads our RF simulation work. If you're working on high-frequency integrated photonics or exploring how to model nonlinear effects, you’ll want to hear what she has to say. 🎯 Engineers, researchers, tool developers: this is a good chance to dig into what scalable TFLN manufacturing actually looks like, and how to design for it. More on the event & agenda here: https://lnkd.in/eeRtybKY #TFLN #Photonics #MicrowavePhotonics #Simulation #ETHZ #IntegratedPhotonics #Lightium

Detectors and lasers, soon native to TFLN. Lightium is proud to be part of INGENIOUS, a newly funded €7.6M European–Canadian project to integrate lasers and detectors into next-gen TFLN photonic chips. 👉 TFLN offers unmatched performance in modulation, speed, and loss. 👉 But it lacks two critical pieces: light generation and detection. 👉 INGENIOUS solves that—by combining TFLN with InP-based lasers and detectors, integrated at wafer scale using micro-transfer printing (µTP). Our role: ✅ Leading the platform development ✅ Delivering wafer-scale TFLN+InP integration ✅ Expanding our PDK to include active and nonlinear components ✅ Backed by a €3.1M project budget, supported by Innosuisse This is how we turn TFLN into a complete system platform and build the infrastructure for scalable, production-ready photonics in Europe and beyond. Consortium includes: Sivers Semiconductors, Luceda Photonics, Optiwave Systems Inc., Epiphany Design, CMC Microsystems, ALTER TECHNOLOGY TÜV NORD, and PICadvanced. 📡 Use cases: telecom, datacom, AI, quantum 📄 Full announcement: https://lnkd.in/d2zUGBXK #TFLN #InP #IntegratedPhotonics #Xecs #EurekaProgram #Lightium #Innosuisse #DeepTech #AIInfrastructure #Photonics

Bandwidth—not compute—is now the bottleneck in data infrastructure. At ECOC Exhibition 2025 in Copenhagen, we’re showing how that bottleneck gets solved, together. Lightium is building the first open-access 200 mm TFLN foundry. But enabling ultra-fast photonic chips isn’t just about wafers and PDKs. It’s about the full stack: design, manufacturing, packaging, and testing. That’s why we’re working closely with partners like PHIX Photonics Assembly, Axiomatic_AI, and MPI Corporation. Each plays a critical role in getting TFLN photonic ICs from concept to deployment—at scale, and at speed. 📍 Find us at booth C1527 at ECOC 2025. Let’s talk about what it takes to move photonics from R&D to volume production. #ECOC2025 #TFLN #IntegratedPhotonics #OpticalCommunications #Lightium #DataInfrastructure #AutonomousTesting

🎂 Lightium just turned 2. In startup years, that’s somewhere between toddler and triathlete. We have grown from 6 to 20+ people in under 12 months, with countless achievements, deadlines met under pressure, and lessons learned under our belt. But also shared memories, laughs, and bonds. Behind the wafers, the PDKs, and the TFLN acronyms is a team that’s working at a pace most people would call crazy. We just call it necessary. Because the goal hasn’t changed: Ultra-high-speed, scalable, secure data infrastructure, made real with TFLN and possible at scale. Thanks to the team that’s been in the trenches with us: engineering, ops, cleanroom, admin, sales, comms, finance, all of it. And thanks to our partners and customers who saw where this is headed and jumped in early. We’re just getting started. #StartupLife #ScaleUp #TeamAchievement #BuildingTogether #FoundersJourney #FastGrowth #LaserFocused

Lightium joins the Swiss Top 100 Startups 2025, ranked #39 as a newcomer! What makes this ranking special is the diversity of innovation it showcases at the very top: 🥇 Corintis: tackling the thermal bottleneck of advanced chips with embedded cooling 🥈 DePoly: turning plastic waste into valuable raw materials 🥉 DeepJudge: applying AI to legal workflows to make knowledge work scalable Deep tech, clean tech, legal tech. Very different problems, same level of ambition. At Lightium, we develop ultra-fast photonic chips to break the bandwidth bottleneck of data infrastructure. Being part of this list means being part of a broader movement: startups tackling critical challenges with real technical depth. A big thank you to Venturelab for driving this community forward! #TFLN #Photonics #SwissStartups #DeepTech #Top100SSU #Lightium

Scaling photonics isn’t just about better devices. It’s about building the team that can take them to volume. On August 1st, Lightium expanded its management team with Jens Hofrichter, PhD, PMP, who joined Lightium as VP of Engineering to lead our growing R&D team and drive the maturity and robustness of our TFLN platform. With 15+ years of experience at Liom, ams AG, and IBM, Jens has strengthened photonic technologies in both agile startup settings and high-volume manufacturing environments. That mix is exactly what’s needed as we make our 200 mm platform ready for high-performance, robust, and secure manufacturing. Welcome aboard, Jens. Let’s build it right. #IntegratedPhotonics #TFLN #ScalingDeepTech #Lightium

🚀 We’re redefining how photonic devices are tested. Lightium, MPI Corporation, and Axiomatic_AI have joined forces to build the world’s first Intelligent, Autonomous, and Integrated Test Solution (IAITS) for ultra-fast photonic integrated circuits (PICs). 📍 Why this matters: Testing bottlenecks are one of the biggest roadblocks in scaling PICs. Together, we’re eliminating them with a platform that thinks, adapts, and scales. IAITS brings: ✔️ Lightning-fast test cycles ✔️ Minimal human intervention ✔️ Seamless transition from R&D to production ✔️ Lower cost and faster time-to-market This is more than automation. It’s next-gen intelligence for a next-gen industry. 🔗 Learn how we’re turning a shared vision into reality: 👉 https://lnkd.in/dydsUyzP #Photonics #PICs #AI #Semiconductors #DeepTech #AutonomousTest #Lightium #MPICorporation #AxiomaticAI Lawrence van der Vegt Dirk Englund Amir H. Ghadimi