GlobalFoundries and Marvell Sign Expanded Multi-Year Deal to Boost Silicon Germanium Capacity for AI Data

GlobalFoundries and Marvell Technology announced on September 17, 2026, that they have signed an expanded multi-year agreement to increase silicon germanium (SiGe) process capacity at GlobalFoundries' Burlington, Vermont facility, in order to meet growing market demand for next-generation optical interconnects. The agreement builds on the two companies' existing volume production business and plans to add substantial new capacity to support Marvell Technology's related business needs.

Artificial intelligence data centers operate as distributed computing systems, where performance depends not only on accelerators but also on the high-speed interconnects that transmit data between components. The expanded collaboration between GlobalFoundries and Marvell Technology will increase capacity for high-performance silicon germanium processes used in next-generation pluggable optical modules, near-packaged optics (NPO), and co-packaged optics (CPO). GlobalFoundries' silicon germanium technology portfolio offers the high-frequency performance, signal integrity, and energy efficiency required for advanced optical networks. Its existing processes can support 200G per lane optical interconnects, and it has a technology roadmap to address the higher bandwidth demands driven by artificial intelligence and cloud data centers.

GlobalFoundries has been manufacturing advanced silicon germanium processes for more than a decade, continuously integrating silicon germanium, silicon photonics, and advanced packaging to serve new optical interconnect architectures such as near-packaged optics and co-packaged optics. This agreement builds on more than ten years of collaboration between GlobalFoundries and Marvell Technology. GlobalFoundries also said it will continue to invest in technology roadmap research and development and manufacturing capacity in the United States and globally, while Marvell Technology is investing in areas related to high-bandwidth optical architectures such as near-packaged optics and co-packaged optics.