lithium niobate / 08 Industry / 8.2
8.2 Who grows, slices, fabs, and builds
L1 Ecosystem by stage and region
Crystal growers that list LN or LT on their own product pages include Sumitomo Metal Mining and Shin-Etsu (LT only) F. One supplier, NanoLN, is named in 50 of the 56 published TFLN/TFLT papers that state where their wafers came from derived. Since 2023, companies and institutes in China, the US, Europe, and Taiwan have announced thin-film LN production or pilot foundry lines (8.3).
| Stage | US | CA | EU/CH | UK | CN | JP | TW |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crystal | |||||||
| Thin-film wafer | |||||||
| Foundry | |||||||
| Device | |||||||
| PPLN | |||||||
| Quantum / computing |
HyperLightUnited States
- Foundry Volume production on 6" and 8" with UMC and Wavetek (2026-03); UMC release read via trade press 2026-03-11T/C
- Device US$80 M Series C led by MediaTek (2026-06-18); 200 G/lane products available, 400 G/lane sampling 2026-06-18F/V
Hover or focus a stage name: its companies invert, the same companies in other stages or regions get a solid outline. + = company appears in more than one cell. Select a tag for its facts.
HyperLightUnited States
- Foundry Volume production on 6" and 8" with UMC and Wavetek (2026-03); UMC release read via trade press 2026-03-11T/C
- Device US$80 M Series C led by MediaTek (2026-06-18); 200 G/lane products available, 400 G/lane sampling 2026-06-18F/V
L2 Entries
| Stage | Company | Region | Verified fact | Date | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crystal | Sumitomo Metal Mining | JP | LT and LN crystals; 4" and 6" wafers for SAW | page accessed 2026-10-24 | F |
| Crystal | Shin-Etsu Chemical | JP | LT crystals and wafers, 4" and 6" | page accessed 2026-10-24 | F |
| Crystal | TDG Holding (Tiantong, SSE 600330) | CN | 8-inch LN "in mass production" (statement); 2029 wafer plan (roadmap); states it does not make optical modules | 2026-06-03 | F/V |
| Crystal | Nanzhi Xincai (Suzhou) | CN | Founded 2021-12 on a Nanjing University team; LN/LT crystal materials; Pre-A round over CNY 100 M | 2026-06-17 | T/V |
| Thin-film wafer | NanoLN (Jinan Jingzheng Electronics) | CN | LNOI and LTOI, 300-900 nm films | page accessed 2026-10-24 | F |
| Thin-film wafer | NanoLN (Jinan Jingzheng Electronics) | CN | Investors include Huawei Hubble; preparing an IPO; strategic investment from Shandong Hi-Speed (2026-04) | 2026-06 | T |
| Thin-film wafer | Soitec | EU/CH | POI LT6 / LT8 / LN6 for RF filters; 150 mm LNOI for CCRAFT (2025-06) | 2025-06-25 | F/T |
| Thin-film wafer | ELENA consortium (EU H2020) | EU/CH | Claims the first European commercial LNOI substrates (150 mm); states the prior chain "depended on a single commercial supplier outside the EU"; project ended 2025-06 | 2025-06-23 | T/V |
| Foundry | HyperLight | US | Volume production on 6" and 8" with UMC and Wavetek (2026-03); UMC release read via trade press | 2026-03-11 | T/C |
| Foundry | UMC / Wavetek | TW | Foundry partner of HyperLight for volume TFLN production on 6" and 8" (2026-03) | 2026-03-11 | T/C |
| Foundry | CCRAFT | EU/CH | MPW runs CLN600-Core / CLN600-Plus, 150 mm; targets 12 M chips per year and up to 2,000 wafers per month by 2030 | 2026-07-02 | T/V |
| Foundry | Lightium | EU/CH | Design, foundry, and packaging services; US$7 M seed (reported 2024-09-20) | 2024-09-20 | T/V |
| Foundry | Ligentec + X-FAB | EU/CH | TFLN-on-SiN and TFLN-on-SOI at 200 mm inside X-FAB | 2026-01-19 | F |
| Foundry | Quantum Computing Inc. | US | TFLN foundry; first foundry order announced 2024-11-13 | 2024-11-13 | T/V |
| Foundry | CHIPX (Wuxi, SJTU) | CN | 6" pilot line; first 6" TFLN wafer reported 2025-06-09 | 2025-06-09 | T |
| Foundry | Anpai Optoelectronics | CN | At Jiufengshan Laboratory; reported "world's first 8-inch TFLN line", completed 2023-09 (reporter claim) | 2023-09 | T |
| Device | HyperLight | US | US$80 M Series C led by MediaTek (2026-06-18); 200 G/lane products available, 400 G/lane sampling | 2026-06-18 | F/V |
| Device | Advanced Fiber Resources (AFR) | CN | TFLN 130 GBd CDM in volume shipment (2025-04-07); 400 G/lane chip for 1.6T and 3.2T (ECOC 2025) | 2025-10-01 | F/V |
| Device | Murata | JP | TFLN EO modulator in development (OFC 2026); states its high-frequency filters use LiNbO3 | 2026-03-10 | V |
| Device | Exail (formerly iXblue) | EU/CH | LN modulators since 2000; FOG integrated optical circuits; over 25,000 FOGs sold | page accessed 2026-10-24 | F/V |
| Device | Jiangsu Niobao Optoelectronics (Nanjing) | CN | TFLN modulator chips, full process in house (claim); Series C in progress (2026-06) | 2026-06-17 | T/V |
| PPLN | Covesion | UK | MgO:PPLN crystals 460-6000 nm; in Hawthorn Photonics with AdvR (2025-06-05) | 2025-06-05 | F |
| PPLN | AdvR | US | LN and KTP waveguide frequency converters; joined Hawthorn Photonics (2025-06-05) | 2025-06-05 | F |
| Quantum / computing | Q.ANT | EU/CH | EUR 62 M Series A (2025-07); TFLN-based photonic processors; "up to 30x" energy efficiency (vendor claim) | 2025-07-22 | T/V |
| Quantum / computing | Xanadu (with HyperLight) | CA | TFLN waveguide loss < 2 dB/m and EO switch loss about 20 mdB, high-volume fab (2025-07-30) | 2025-07-30 | T/V |
Corrections: PsiQuantum's Omega chipset uses barium titanate switches on SiN, not LN (grade C); Lumentum sold its LN modulator line to AFR in 2019 (C/T) and has no TFLN product found; no TFLN modulator announcement was found for Coherent Corp. (C).
Who fabricates published devices (atlas)
Fab facility and affiliation country of 105 TFLN/TFLT atlas papers derived: university and shared cleanrooms lead; commercial and foundry entries are few. A paper counts once per facility and once per country.
atlas eb97f96 · 2026-10-20 · fetched 2026-10-25 github.com/jwt625/eo-modulator-atlas, no license file upstream
L3 What "verified" means
- "Verified" here means the page was opened and read on the access date; it does not mean the claim was checked independently (that is grade F for dated events and statements only).
- Not shown, graded C (page not opened): Fujitsu Optical Components TF-LN CDM, Genuine Optics 3.2T, EOSPACE, Thorlabs, HC Photonics, NTT Innovative Devices, Liobate funding, Partow.
- Not shown, graded LG (direction only): wafer price, supply gap, AFR margins, TDG 12-inch.
- Company names are given in English as the company or the cited source writes them.