Ushering in high-speed, low power silicon photonics for AI datacenters and compute applications.

Enosemi is a silicon photonics design and IP company. Silicon photonics is able to fabricate high speed optical circuits using existing CMOS fabrication processes and foundry infrastructure. The result is communications chips that are high speed, low power, and yet inexpensive to mass produce. Silicon photonics is inherently capable of mixing electronic and photonic subsystems, something pure photonics has always struggled with.

The Enosemi founders are proven leaders in commercializing silicon photonics, with deep industry expertise, and a prior startup Elenion, which exited to Nokia. They came out of one of the leading silicon photonics research groups at the Universities of Washington and Singapore, and are one of the only teams in the world to have shipped silicon photonic products.

Enosemi’s business model is an “IP foundry model” for silicon photonics. This model is proven in silicon by companies like ARM and Broadcom, which have succeeded with a similar approach in pure electronics. The model is to take on design services and gradually build up a library of designs (referred to as “IP” in the industry), which then generates licensing revenue. For example, a company designing and advanced AI datacenter chip for optical interconnects can buy from Enosemi the basic building blocks such as transmitters and amplifiers, while designing their own special sauce circuits. This reduces development team size and time to market. Market-leading companies in these spaces are already working with Enosemi, with more in the pipeline.

We see this as a pick-and-shovels play for AI / datacenters.