Industrial laser giant Coherent receives $33 million investment

Recently, according to media reports, industrial laser giant Coherent has signed a "preliminary terms memorandum" with the US Department of Commerce, which will receive up to $33 million in investment under the Chip and Science Act.

It is reported that the funds will mainly be used to support the modernization and expansion project of the cutting-edge manufacturing cleanroom in Coherent's existing 700000 square foot factory area, to build a 150mm indium phosphide (InP) production line, and to increase the production capacity of InP devices by introducing advanced wafer manufacturing process equipment.

Currently, InP optoelectronic devices have been widely used in data communication, telecommunications transceivers, and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, while also penetrating into multiple fields such as consumer electronics sensors, healthcare, and automobiles, becoming a key element in promoting modern information technology innovation and industrial upgrading.

On November 6th, Coherent released its first quarter performance report for the fiscal year 2025. The report shows that as of September 30th, the company's revenue was 1.35 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 28.0%, mainly due to the booming development of artificial intelligence data centers.

The Coherent factory was originally built by Texas Instruments for the production of silicon devices and was acquired by InP device manufacturer Finisar in 2017. The plan was to produce vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays, which Apple hoped to integrate into the face recognition sensor of the newly launched iPhone X.

It is worth mentioning that Coherent's goal is to establish the most advanced production process on InP wafers with a diameter of 150 millimeters, which is a big step higher than the production processes that could be achieved elsewhere at that time, thus achieving economies of scale.

In 2019, Finisar merged with II-VI. Subsequently, in 2022, II-VI completed the acquisition of Coherent and changed the company name to Coherent Corp. thereafter.

Source: Yangtze River Delta Laser Alliance