Jerusalem-based Teramount, a provider of connectivity solutions for ultra-high bandwidth applications, announced on Tuesday that it had completed an $ 8 million funding round. The round was led by Grove Ventures with participation from Amelia Investments, as well as former executive VP of Intel and company Chairman, David (Dadi) Perlmutter and other private investors.

Teramount experienced a recent breakthrough by demonstrating 100x improved tolerance in assembling fiber to silicon chip compared to existing technology. This will enable the integration of optics with silicon and the scalable deployment of silicon photonics. The funding and breakthrough come at somewhat of a critical moment in the semiconductor industry, as it faces problems of how to support the next-gen needs of high-speed data transfers.

Hesham Taha and Avi (Abraham) Israel, Founders of Teramount. Photo: Ilan Asaig

“This investment is a major vote of confidence in our breakthrough photonic-plug technology, which will open the door to next-generation tech set to fulfill the promise of silicon photonics in data centers, mobility 5G and beyond,” said Hesham Taha, CEO of Teramount. “Our recent results in the development of co-packaged switches are a crucial first step and now with this funding, we’re readying to take the giant leap forward to productization and market impact.”

Silicon-photonics is the process that sees ‘speed-of-light data transfer’ at low power consumption. Semiconductor vendors have been addressing the need for solutions regarding bandwidth and the ability to properly process large data transfers without hampering scalability or reducing manufacturing reliability. Teramount’s breakthrough is set to solve this challenge as well as offer breakthroughs in other industries such as 5G, sensors, mobility, and more.

“The insatiable need for dependable high bandwidth solutions requires solving the issue of a complex integration of optics directly on silicon switches in a co-packaged configuration and that issue has remained unsolved until now,” added Lior Handelsman, General Partner at Grove Ventures. “Teramount’s cost-effective, high-yield solutions for connecting hundreds of fibers to a single switch chip is a uniquely scalable solution that offers superior performance, dependability, and cost. It represents a unique opportunity to upend the status quo on an incredible scale and we’re excited to be a part of it.”

David (Dadi) Perlmutter, Teramount chairman added: “The ever-increasing need for computing speed and capacity for the current and future needs driven by the world moving fast to digital and the growth of AI applications requires data transfers in the data center and between computers in light speed. Teramount technology not only makes it happen, but makes it manufacturable in higher yields and volume.”

Teramount was founded in 2013 by Taha and Abraham Israel, who serves as CTO. It provides optical connectivity for chipsets that can handle the high-bandwidth needs of data centers, computers, and mobile devices.