July 16, 2025 /SemiMedia/ — STMicroelectronics has expanded its partnership with Metalenz through a new licensing agreement, aiming to accelerate production of metasurface optics by leveraging its 300mm semiconductor manufacturing platform. The agreement enhances ST’s ability to integrate advanced optics and semiconductor processes for large-scale, high-precision, and cost-effective applications across consumer, industrial and automotive markets.

Since 2022, ST has shipped over 140 million FlightSense time-of-flight modules and metasurface optics enabled by Metalenz’s intellectual property. These components are widely used in smartphones, robotics, lidar systems, gesture recognition, and object detection.

Alexandre Balmefrezol, Executive Vice President and head of ST’s Imaging Sub-Group, said the renewed agreement “strengthens our position in emerging 3D sensing applications and helps meet demand for compact and scalable optical solutions.” He emphasized that integrating optical manufacturing into ST’s 300mm semiconductor fabs ensures high throughput and quality for complex sensing tasks.

Rob Devlin, co-founder and CEO of Metalenz, stated, “This collaboration continues to push metasurface optics from research to mainstream adoption, redefining the sensing ecosystem by enabling optical elements to be fabricated in semiconductor fabs.” He added that ST and Metalenz are well-positioned to lead the growing metasurface optics market.

According to Yole Group’s 2024 Optical Metasurfaces report, the market is projected to reach $2 billion by 2029, driven by demand from next-generation imaging and display technologies.