Himax to Make Strategic Investment in FOCI Private Placement Financing; Companies to Unite FOCI’s World Leading CPO Technology with Himax State-of-the-Art Nano-Scale WLO at the Innovative Forefront of MCM Integration
Integration of FOCI’s ReLFACon? CPO Connector with Himax’s Nano-Scale WLO Technology to Enhance Bandwidth, Improve Data Transfer Rate, Minimize Signal Loss, Reduce Latency, and Lower Transmission Energy Consumption While Accommodating Next-Gen AGI Application Demands
HSINCHU and TAINAN, Taiwan, June 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FOCI Fiber Optic Communications, Inc. (TPEX: 3363) (“FOCI”), announced today that its Board of Directors has approved the issuance of 5,000,000 shares of common stock in a private placement financing with Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: HIMX) (“Himax” or “Company”) participating as a strategic investor through its wholly-owned Taiwan subsidiary, Himax Technologies Limited. The subscription price is set at NT$104.4 per share (approximately US$3.2), resulting in gross proceeds of NT$522 million (approximately US$16 million), fully subscribed by Himax. Upon completion, Himax will hold a 5.3% equity stake in FOCI.
Headquartered in Taiwan, FOCI is a leading global silicon photonics (“SiPh”) connector manufacturer. With decades of experience in optical communication technology, FOCI has embarked on research and development in silicon photonics packaging technology in recent years and has been in close collaboration with world-class semiconductor clients in the field of Co-Packaged Optics (“CPO”). The collaboration with Himax features the integration of Himax’s Wafer Level Optics (“WLO”) and FOCI's CPO technologies into cutting-edge multi-chip modules (“MCM”), enhancing performance across various applications such as High-Performance Computing (“HPC”), cloud servers, Artificial General Intelligence (“AGI”), industrial digitization, healthcare, and academic research.
CPO is an emerging technology that encapsulates silicon photonic chips and optical connectors together in MCM modules. This enables multiple semiconductor chips to be connected via high-speed optical links, replacing the traditional metal wire transmission, thereby enhancing bandwidth, increasing data transfer rate, reducing signal loss, decreasing latency, lowering transmission energy consumption, and significantly reducing the size and cost of MCM modules. ReLFAConTM, developed by FOCI, is the most advanced CPO solution in the industry, integrating fiber optic array connectors into silicon photonic MCM modules, enabling direct transmission of external photonic signals with MCM modules to achieve the ideal signal transmission. ReLFAConTM uses materials that are resilient to high-temperature reflow and match the expansion coefficient of semiconductor silicon wafers. Consequently, FOCI's CPO technology not only boasts well-established mass production capability but also delivers outstanding product reliability. FOCI has effectively combined the above technological advancements with automated semiconductor packaging production for seamless preparation for mass production of fiber optic array connectors.
Additionally, Himax’s proprietary and industry-leading WLO technology enhances the optical characteristics of FOCI's ReLFAConTM connectors. Leveraging years of WLO engineering expertise, Himax has meticulously designed and developed nano-scale precision optical systems, which have been successfully verified and integrated into FOCI's ReLFAConTM products. With the jointly developed precision-engineered optical design and manufacturing technologies, the optical signals in each fiber precisely couple with the silicon photonic integrated circuit (“PIC”) in CPO optical components, achieving high-precision, low-loss and high-speed transmission to meet the demand for silicon photonic transmission in high-speed computing.
Himax has accumulated significant WLO mass production experience in collaborations with major international names across various application domains. Key products include AR glasses from renowned manufacturers, facial recognition solutions for handheld devices, and spatial computation and gesture control systems for VR goggles. Himax’s WLO technology boasts an impressive track record of mass production, with over 600 million units shipped over the past decade, demonstrating outstanding production capability. The integration of Himax’s WLO technology enhances the performance of FOCI's CPO solution, ensuring the design and production of high-precision optical components to meet the growing demand for silicon photonic transmission and driving significant advancements in the fields of HPC, AGI, and communications.
“We are thrilled to welcome Himax as the major investor and partner in this private placement round. Our mission is to revolutionize high-performance computing with advanced Co-Packaged Optics,” said Dingda Hu, President of FOCI. “By integrating Himax’s WLO technology with our ReLFAConTM connector product, we can provide exceptional alignment and high-precision photonic propagation. This private placement financing will further strengthen the long-term strategic partnership between FOCI and Himax. Both parties will continue to collaborate with customers and ecosystem partners to accelerate the development of CPO technology, essential for high-speed computing requiring high bandwidth and low latency,” concluded Mr. Hu.
“Investing in FOCI not only underscores Himax’s commitment to expanding the diverse applications of optical products but also highlights the nearly infinite potential of our WLO technology in advancing cutting-edge technology,” said Jordan Wu, CEO of Himax. “FOCI already possesses world-leading optical communication and CPO technology. By combining their specialty with Himax’s state-of-the-art WLO optical capabilities, both parties can strengthen their leading positions in high-speed AGI computing and optical communication. We look forward to a long-term strategic collaboration with FOCI, jointly embracing the explosive demand for high-speed transmission in the future,” concluded Mr. Wu.
About FOCI Fiber Optic Communications, Inc. FOCI Fiber Optic Communications, Inc. (“FOCI”) was established in 1995. FOCI was founded by a core team of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (“ITRI”) which is the most prestigious institute in Taiwan. FOCI is recognized as a pioneer in fiber optic interconnect, FBT (Fused Biconic Taper), and PLC (Planar Lightwave Circuit) technology development in Taiwan. FOCI designs, manufactures and markets a broad range of high performance fiber optic components and integrated modules including fiber optic coupler, PLC splitter, thin film coarse WDM, dense WDM, multi-fiber cable assembly module, etc. that increase the bandwidth and flexibility of today’s communication networks. In addition to fiber to the home (FTTH) application, FOCI has developed new high-speed optical cable products under Light peak technology to bring fiber to the desk applications into practice. FOCI integrates the needs of customers and suppliers, and offers the total solutions for various new product design, such as customized optical transceiver products, Co-packaged optics systems, etc.
FOCI’s products make it easier for its customers to innovate, compete and continue to drive down the cost of optical communication hardware worldwide, and to deliver optical networking systems to the rapidly growing long-haul, metropolitan and last-mile access segments of the communication networks.
FOCI has the resources, innovative technology and industry expertise to meet the growing needs of customers around the corner and around the world. In viewing Fiber to the home (FTTH) and Cloud Computing has become a reality as well as growing rapidly for recent years, FOCI has provided most efficient and cost effective volume manufacturing optical modules to fit your configuration design. All our products feature excellent optical performance and pass strict reliability tests and have been widely deployed in broadband networks around the world.
About Himax Technologies, Inc. Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: HIMX) is a leading global fabless semiconductor solution provider dedicated to display imaging processing technologies. The Company’s display driver ICs and timing controllers have been adopted at scale across multiple industries worldwide including TVs, PC monitors, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, automotive, ePaper devices, industrial displays, among others. As the global market share leader in automotive display technology, the Company offers innovative and comprehensive automotive IC solutions, including traditional driver ICs, advanced in-cell Touch and Display Driver Integration (TDDI), local dimming timing controllers (Local Dimming Tcon), Large Touch and Display Driver Integration (LTDI) and OLED display technologies. Himax is also a pioneer in tinyML visual-AI and optical technology related fields. The Company’s industry-leading WiseEye? Ultralow Power AI Sensing technology which incorporates Himax proprietary ultralow power AI processor, always-on CMOS image sensor, and CNN-based AI algorithm has been widely deployed in consumer electronics and AIoT related applications. While Himax optics technologies, such as diffractive wafer level optics, LCoS microdisplays and 3D sensing solutions, are critical for facilitating emerging AR/VR/metaverse technologies. Additionally, Himax designs and provides touch controllers, OLED ICs, LED ICs, EPD ICs, power management ICs, and CMOS image sensors for diverse display application coverage. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Tainan, Taiwan, Himax currently employs around 2,200 people from three Taiwan-based offices in Tainan, Hsinchu and Taipei and country offices in China, Korea, Japan, Germany, and the US. Himax has 2,772 patents granted and 398 patents pending approval worldwide as of March 31, 2024.
Forward Looking Statements Factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described in this conference call include, but are not limited to, the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Company’s business; general business and economic conditions and the state of the semiconductor industry; market acceptance and competitiveness of the driver and non-driver products developed by the Company; demand for end-use applications products; reliance on a small group of principal customers; the uncertainty of continued success in technological innovations; our ability to develop and protect our intellectual property; pricing pressures including declines in average selling prices; changes in customer order patterns; changes in estimated full-year effective tax rate; shortage in supply of key components; changes in environmental laws and regulations; changes in export license regulated by Export Administration Regulations (EAR); exchange rate fluctuations; regulatory approvals for further investments in our subsidiaries; our ability to collect accounts receivable and manage inventory and other risks described from time to time in the Company's SEC filings, including those risks identified in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in its Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2023 filed with the SEC, as may be amended.
