A returnee PhD graduate working on silicon photonic chips has raised hundreds of millions of yuan in a single financing round.

On November 6, ChinaVenture learned that Shanghai Bopu Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. (abbreviated as "Bopu Semiconductor") has completed a Series B financing of several hundred million yuan, with investors including China Vision Capital, Kailian Capital, Southeast Grid, Shanghai Science and Technology Venture Capital Group Intellectual Property Fund, Shunyi Investment and other institutions.

This company, which has long been deploying in the silicon photonics industry chain, was jointly founded in Shanghai in 2022 by the overseas returnee Dr. Xing Yufei and the founding team. To date, Bopu Semiconductor's business focuses on high-speed optical interconnection and optical switching, providing full-link solutions covering chip design to mass production.

Around the links of high-speed silicon photonic transceivers, IP authorization and customization, wafer-level testing equipment, OCS (Optical Circuit Switching) and OE (Optical Engine), this silicon photonics-based service provider and optical interconnection solution provider for AI computing power has achieved large-scale product shipment as early as 2025.

According to Xing Yufei, founder and general manager of Bopu Semiconductor, with the injection of new round of funds, they will continue to increase R&D investment in silicon photonic switching chips and related processes, and simultaneously promote the development of next-generation high-speed optical transceiver chips and optical engines for chip-level optical interconnection (OCI).

Led by an overseas returnee doctor, two rounds of financing completed within one year

Xing Yufei's interest in the industrialization of silicon photonics took shape during his studies and participation in R&D processes.

In 2007, he graduated from Zhejiang University with a bachelor's degree in optoelectronics, and then went to Europe to pursue his master's degree. After graduating with a master's degree in 2013, Xing Yufei went to the National University of Singapore to pursue his doctorate. He not only worked on chip design at OpSIS Foundry founded by his supervisor, but also participated in the development of process design kits at the Institute of Microelectronics (IME), Singapore.

"I actually pursued my doctorate with the goal of promoting the industrialization of silicon photonics." According to Xing Yufei's recollection, at that time, the silicon photonics industry was still in the early exploration stage, and there were very few wafer fabs that could provide related manufacturing services. "Even if the chip design can meet the expected performance, the manufacturing link may not be able to produce it stably."

Therefore, he chose to pursue a doctorate in integrated silicon-based optoelectronics at Ghent University in Belgium, and carried out research on silicon photonic process fluctuation, yield prediction and design tools at the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec) in Belgium, trying to solve the problem of inconsistent chip performance in different manufacturing batches.

By 2019, with a deeper understanding of the silicon photonics industry, Xing Yufei joined Xanadu, a Canadian optical quantum computing company. In order to obtain test feedback of chips in a timely manner when there was a lack of suitable tools, he not only developed quantum optical chips, but also participated in building a wafer-level test platform.

As some overseas silicon photonics foundry processes gradually matured, and China also began to increase relevant manufacturing investment, Xing Yufei found that application demands for high-speed optical transceivers and LiDAR gradually emerged. He judged that the design, process and testing capabilities he had accumulated before could be applied to the domestic industry chain.

Eventually, he chose to return to China for development, and once joined the Shanghai Industrial Technology Research Institute to help domestic clients carry out silicon photonics design and R&D. When the entrepreneurial conditions were mature, Xing Yufei, who hoped to provide full-link solutions from chip design to mass production of products, founded Bopu Semiconductor in Shanghai in 2022 together with the founding team.

When Bopu Semiconductor was first established, they already had a clear plan for future development. "No matter what the specific product direction is, we will make a layout of the entire silicon photonics industry chain." Xing Yufei said frankly that they would break through whatever link is the bottleneck of the current market.

Thus we can see that this company first participated in the development of silicon photonics processes and PDKs (Process Design Kits) for domestic wafer fabs, and at the same time contacted downstream enterprises engaged in silicon photonics R&D and products, taking LiDAR and optical sensing as the key directions for early exploration.

Behind this arrangement is their hope to go through all links from design, testing, packaging to productization through specific products. In this process, Bopu Semiconductor also built a wafer-level test platform, and with the support of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization, developed an automatic silicon photonic wafer testing machine for mass production.

With the growing demand for transmission bandwidth from AI computing power clusters, Bopu Semiconductor's business focus has also been adjusted accordingly. In 2024, Bopu Semiconductor expanded its high-speed transceiver business at home and abroad, and at the same time began to prepare research schemes for large-scale all-optical switch architecture.

After the two business lines of high-speed optical transceivers and optical switching became gradually clear, they also attracted the attention of more investors. In October 2025, Bopu Semiconductor completed a Series A financing of several hundred million yuan led by Shanghai Guohe Investment. One year later, the company completed another Series B financing of several hundred million yuan.

In the view of Li Yan, Managing Director of China Vision Capital, with the continuous growth of AI computing power and the increasing demand for high-speed interconnection in data centers, silicon photonics technology will become an important direction to break through the performance and power consumption bottlenecks of traditional optical interconnection.

"Their core advantage lies in their excellent independent R&D capability for PIC (Photonic Integrated Circuit) chips, and their commitment to realizing full-link localization from core chip design to key links." Li Yan believes that the independent and controllable core technical capability and complete localization system not only help to improve product iteration efficiency and supply chain security, but also lay a foundation for Bopu Semiconductor to establish long-term competitive advantages in the high-speed optical interconnection industry chain.

Provide optical interconnection solutions, products achieve large-scale shipment

For optical module manufacturers and computing power system developers, silicon photonic chips not only need to meet the ever-increasing transmission bandwidth requirements, but also need to adapt to different interfaces and packaging schemes, and achieve stable manufacturing in wafer fabs.

When Bopu Semiconductor entered the high-speed optical transceiver market, there were already mature suppliers overseas. In the early stage when they developed chips overseas, they also encountered situations where wafer supply was restricted, which affected customer delivery.

Therefore, with the help of the 12-inch silicon photonic process platform and manufacturing capacity of the Shanghai Integrated Circuit Research and Development Center (ICRD), this company developed high-speed transceiver products together with foundry partners, and repeatedly taped out its own products for optimization.

According to Xing Yufei, their cumulative investment in previous chip design and process iterations covers nearly 1000 wafers. Among them, for a transmitter chip used in 800G optical modules, 5 batches of 125 wafers in total have been verified at ICRD, and the highest wafer-level chip yield of one batch is close to 99%.

Whether the performance and yield of different batches can remain consistent is directly related to the subsequent production and delivery of silicon photonic chips that require long-term stable manufacturing. This is also the reason why Bopu Semiconductor continues to invest in process coordination and wafer-level testing.

Instead of being limited to providing standard silicon photonic chips to customers, they also carry out customized design according to the requirements of special interfaces, packaging and system architectures. For customers who hope to independently develop products, this company can also provide existing device design and related technical support.

From the perspective of customers who need IP authorization and customized design, developing silicon photonic chips from scratch not only requires forming a team, but also going through links such as process adaptation, tape-out and testing, which takes a long time and high cost.

In this regard, Bopu Semiconductor can authorize customers with already developed device IP such as modulators, photodetectors and couplers, or complete chip designs. After obtaining the design, customers can further develop their own products, or directly negotiate wafer procurement and capacity arrangement with cooperative foundries.

Since they mainly master the design IP, the specific cooperation modes include not only one-time IP licensing fees, but also subsequent foundry revenue sharing that may be generated according to the agreement. "At present, several customers have imported relevant designs in our cooperative foundries." Xing Yufei added.

Just like the chip business, wafer-level testing equipment is also a product that Bopu Semiconductor has already generated revenue from. They developed their previously accumulated high-speed parallel testing capability into equipment products, which are not only used for their own chip R&D, but also sold to third-party customers.

"The company has achieved large-scale shipment in 2025, and product revenue is growing rapidly, mainly from the sales of optical transceiver chips and wafer-level testing equipment." Xing Yufei admitted that their IP authorization and customization business is promoting customer import, while the commercialization of optical switching products is being accelerated.

At present, relying on self-developed low-loss processes, Bopu Semiconductor has carried out deployment tests of 32-port silicon photonic switching chips and complete machine prototypes in China, exploring the application of optical switching in computing power interconnection. In addition, their 100G per channel products have been shipped to customers, and the modulator developed for 200G per channel products is being adapted according to customer requirements.

Although optical switching can reconstruct connections according to task requirements, enabling related computing nodes to interconnect directly through optical paths and reduce some electrical switching hops, whether customers will adopt it depends on the interconnection effect in the specific network and whether the products can adapt to the original system.

This also means that their existing design, testing and cooperative manufacturing capabilities ultimately need to be verified by customers. "The next challenge is still the speed of commercial import." Xing Yufei added.

In the future plan, accelerating the implementation of optical switching products in practical applications and making the optical interconnection solutions they provide recognized by more customers will also be the key direction that Bopu Semiconductor will focus on.

This article is from the WeChat official account "ChinaVenture", author: Lu Zhigao, editor: Wang Qingwu, 36Kr is published with authorization.