Tower Semiconductor Teams Up With LightIC to Power Next-Gen LiDAR for Cars and Robotics

Tower Semiconductor (NASDAQ/TASE: TSEM), a leading foundry of high-value analog semiconductor solutions, and LightIC Technologies ("LightIC"), a developer of silicon photonics–based FMCW LiDAR solutions, today announced a strategic collaboration leveraging Tower's mature silicon photonics platform to support LightIC's Frequency-Modulated Continuous-Wave (FMCW) LiDAR products, including the Lark™ long-range automotive LiDAR and the FR60™ compact LiDAR for robotics and Physical AI applications.

According to the latest research from Yole Group, the global automotive LiDAR market is projected to grow from $859 million in 2024 to $3.6 billion by 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24%. This growth is a key component of the broader LiDAR landscape, which Yole expects to reach $6.3 billion by 2027 as the technology expands into industrial automation, smart infrastructure, and robotics.

The continued scaling of AI data-center networking has accelerated silicon photonics process maturity and manufacturability, expanding its adoption in systems requiring tightly integrated optical functionality. Tower Semiconductor's advanced silicon photonics platform, widely utilized in large-scale AI infrastructure deployments, provides a strategic foundation for extending silicon photonics into sensing-driven Physical AI and automotive applications. LightIC Technologies applies this platform to FMCW LiDAR, integrating the optical functions required for coherent ranging and instantaneous velocity sensing directly onto silicon. As SiPho based FMCW LiDAR technology rapidly matures, it is expected to capture larger share of the global LiDAR market analogous to the rapid growth of silicon photonics-based components in data-center networking.

"We are excited to expand our silicon photonics market beyond that of AI infrastructure into new sensing applications," said Dr. Ed Preisler, Vice President and General Manager of RF Business Unit at Tower Semiconductor. "Our joint work with LightIC and its team of experts is a key step in bringing to market velocity-aware sensing for robotics, Physical AI and automotive markets."

The collaboration combines LightIC's silicon photonic design capabilities with Tower's silicon photonics manufacturing platform to enable higher levels of optical integration and improvements in size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C), supporting the transition of velocity-aware LiDAR from advanced development into real-world automotive and Physical AI deployment.