Chinese high-end chipmaker Suzhou Everbright Photonics (长光华芯) will invest RMB1 billion ($143 million) to build a facility for the research and development and production of compound semiconductors, which are made up of two or more elements, as well as laser devices to meet growing market demand, Yicai Global reported on December 28.

The facility will produce compound chips, such as GaAs, GaN, and InP, which are essential to the information communication sector, optoelectronic applications and the new energy vehicle industry, because of their unique advantages in high power and frequency, the Suzhou, eastern Jiangsu province-based company said yesterday. The plant will have an expected output of 100 million chips a year.

Founded in 2012, Everbright Photonics went public in 2022 on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Its new factory project will be located in the Taihu Lake Science City, Suzhou of eastern China’s Jiangsu Province. It will also produce five million laser devices a year, Everbright Photonics said, citing the investment deal it reached with the Suzhou Science and Technology City Management Committee on December 27. Construction should start in 2023 and be completed in 2025.

The annual output value of the project will not be less than RMB600 million ($86.1 million) upon reaching production, said the firm, which also makes high-efficiency lidar and 3D sensing chips, as well as high-speed optical communication semiconductor laser chips, devices and systems, according to Yicai Global.