News: Suppliers
4 August 2026
Aehr receives follow-on production order from lead silicon photonics customer
Aehr Test Systems of Fremont, CA, USA — which provides solutions for testing, burning-in and stabilizing semiconductor devices in wafer-level, singulated die, and packaged-part form — has received a follow-on production order from its lead silicon photonics wafer-level burn-in (WLBI) customer for a fully automated FOX-XP multi-wafer production burn-in system, to ship in first-half 2027 to support the continued expansion of its manufacturing capacity for next-generation silicon photonic integrated circuits.
The AI industry is rapidly transitioning from moving electrons to moving photons, driving a significant expansion in silicon photonics as hyperscale data centers seek higher bandwidth, lower latency, improved power efficiency, and greater scalability. As silicon photonic integrated circuits become increasingly critical to next-generation AI networking, optical switching, co-packaged optics, linear pluggable optics and chip-to-chip optical I/O architectures, manufacturers are placing greater emphasis on production-scale reliability screening and WLBI to ensure long-term performance while improving manufacturing yields and reducing production costs.
The ordered system is configured with nine independent WaferPak test blades, each capable of delivering up to 3500W of power for production burn-in and reliability screening of high-performance silicon photonic integrated circuits used in optical transceivers and emerging chip-to-chip optical I/O applications. The system also includes Aehr’s fully integrated automated wafer-level handling solution, consisting of the FOX-XP multi-wafer production burn-in system, integrated WaferPak Auto Aligner, robotic wafer handling, and automated wafer loading and unloading, providing a complete high-volume automated WLBI solution.
“This production order is another indication that silicon photonics is moving from technology adoption into manufacturing scale-up, and we believe that transition represents a significant long-term growth opportunity for Aehr,” says president & CEO Gayn Erickson. “The order reflects our lead silicon photonics customer’s continued expansion of manufacturing capacity and represents another important milestone in the industry’s transition toward high-volume production of silicon photonic integrated circuits,” he adds.
“As AI clusters continue to grow in size and performance, silicon photonics is emerging as a key enabling technology for delivering the bandwidth, power efficiency and scalability required by next-generation AI infrastructure. What began with optical transceivers is now expanding into optical switching, co-packaged optics, linear pluggable optics, and chip-to-chip optical I/O.
“At the same time, the industry is moving toward more highly integrated optical architectures that integrate or closely co-package laser sources with silicon photonic integrated circuits. These advances improve performance, reduce system cost, simplify manufacturing, and make device reliability even more critical.
“As silicon photonic devices continue to increase in complexity, power density and production volumes, we believe WLBI is becoming a foundational manufacturing step for many of these next-generation devices. Identifying latent defects and stabilization of the integrated lasers before packaging improves manufacturing yields, lowers overall production costs, and enables the long-term reliability demanded by hyperscale AI infrastructure.
“Over the past year, we’ve seen a meaningful increase in engagement from silicon photonics companies around the world spanning engineering qualification systems, production capacity planning, and next-generation device roadmaps. These discussions reinforce our belief that the market is approaching an important inflection point.
“As production requirements evolve toward higher power, fully automated wafer-level manufacturing and larger production volumes, we believe our FOX-XP platform and integrated automated wafer-level handling solution position Aehr to become the production standard for wafer-level reliability screening of silicon photonic integrated circuits,” Erickson reckons.
Industry analysts project strong growth for silicon photonics through the remainder of the decade as hyperscale AI infrastructure, cloud computing, high-performance computing, and advanced optical networking continue driving demand for higher-bandwidth and lower-power interconnect technologies. Emerging applications including co-packaged optics, optical switching, linear pluggable optics, and chip-to-chip optical I/O are expected to further expand the adoption of silicon photonics throughout AI infrastructure. Industry research also points to increasing adoption of integrated and co-packaged laser architectures that improve optical performance, manufacturing scalability, and system efficiency while further increasing the importance of production reliability screening.
Aehr says that its FOX-XP multi-wafer production burn-in system performs full WLBI, stability testing, and production screening of semiconductor devices while enabling customers to test multiple wafers simultaneously in a highly automated manufacturing environment. The FOX-XP platform supports silicon photonics, silicon carbide power semiconductors, AI processors, optical devices, and other semiconductor products requiring production burn-in and reliability screening.
Aehr’s quarterly revenue grows 33% year-on-year to $18.8m
Aehr receives another follow-on production order from lead silicon photonics customer
