HSINCHU and TAINAN, Taiwan, June 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FOCI Fiber Optic Communications, Inc. (TPEX: 3363) ("FOCI"), announced today that its Board of Directors has approved the issuance of 5,000,000 shares of common stock in a private placement financing with Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:HIMX) ("Himax" or "Company") participating as a strategic investor through its wholly-owned Taiwan subsidiary, Himax Technologies Limited. The subscription price is set at NT$104.4 per share (approximately US$3.2), resulting in gross proceeds of NT$522 million (approximately US$16 million), fully subscribed by Himax. Upon completion, Himax will hold a 5.3% equity stake in FOCI. Headquartered in Taiwan, FOCI is a leading global silicon photonics ("SiPh") connector manufacturer. With decades of experience in optical communication technology, FOCI has embarked on research and development in silicon photonics packaging technology in recent years and has been in close collaboration with world-class semiconductor clients in the field of Co-Packaged Optics ("CPO"). The collaboration with Himax features the integration of Himax's Wafer Level Optics ("WLO") and FOCI's CPO technologies into cutting-edge multi-chip modules ("MCM"), enhancing performance across various applications such as High-Performance Computing ("HPC"), cloud servers, Artificial General Intelligence ("AGI"), industrial digitization, healthcare, and academic research. CPO is an emerging technology that encapsulates silicon photonic chips and optical connectors together in MCM modules.  This enables multiple semiconductor chips to be connected via high-speed optical links, replacing the traditional metal wire transmission, thereby enhancing bandwidth, increasing data transfer rate, reducing signal loss, decreasing latency, lowering transmission energy consumption, and significantly reducing the size and cost of MCM modules. ReLFAConTM, developed by FOCI, is the most advanced CPO solution in the industry, integrating fiber optic array connectors into silicon photonic MCM modules, enabling direct transmission of external photonic signals with MCM modules to achieve the ideal signal transmission. ReLFAConTM uses materials that are resilient to high-temperature reflow and match the expansion coefficient of semiconductor silicon wafers. Consequently, FOCI's CPO technology not only boasts well-established mass production capability but also delivers outstanding product reliability. FOCI has effectively combined the above technological advancements with automated semiconductor packaging production for seamless preparation for mass production of fiber optic array connectors. Additionally, Himax's proprietary and industry-leading WLO technology enhances the optical characteristics of FOCI's ReLFAConTM connectors. Leveraging years of WLO engineering expertise, Himax has meticulously designed and developed nano-scale precision optical systems, which have been successfully verified and integrated into FOCI's ReLFAConTM products. With the jointly developed precision-engineered optical design and manufacturing technologies, the optical signals in each fiber precisely couple with the silicon photonic integrated circuit ("PIC") in CPO optical components, achieving high-precision, low-loss and high-speed transmission to meet the demand for silicon photonic transmission in high-speed computing. Himax has accumulated significant WLO mass production experience in collaborations with major international names across various application domains. Key products include AR glasses from renowned manufacturers, facial recognition solutions for handheld devices, and spatial computation and gesture control systems for ...