NTT and four other Japanese companies jointly advance mass-production technology for optical interconnect optical chiplets

Optical Interconnects Move Toward Large-Scale Production as Five Japanese Companies Join Forces Source: Semiconductor Horizons Published: October 23, 2026, 18:26 Japan Technology Progress Generate Poster

Faced with the data center energy consumption and high-speed interconnect demands brought by generative AI, five Japanese companies will advance the development of mass-production technology for photonic-electronic fusion chiplets and plan to build a pilot production line.

From electrical signals to optical signals, chip interconnects usher in a new path

On October 20, 2026, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), NTT Innovative Devices, Japan Semiconductor, Furukawa Electric, and Shinko Electric Industries announced that they will fully launch development work on mass-production technology for photonic-electronic fusion devices. This progress stems from the approval of a joint proposal under a research and development project of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). The proposal is led by NTT Innovative Devices, with the four companies participating jointly, while NTT serves as an advisor responsible for coordinating cooperation among the companies and promoting supply chain development.

The core of photonic-electronic fusion technology is to replace the electrical signals used to transmit data between computing chips such as GPUs with optical signals, thereby achieving larger-capacity and higher-speed data transmission while significantly reducing energy consumption during communication. The focus of this R&D is the optical chiplet. These compact semiconductor components highly integrate photonic integrated circuits (PICs) with electronic integrated circuits (EICs). The five companies plan to establish a comprehensive mass-production technology system covering manufacturing, testing, optical connection, and packaging and assembly.

The five companies divide responsibilities and collaborate to build a pilot production line

The approved proposal falls under the advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology development field of NEDO's "Post-5G Information and Communication System Infrastructure Enhancement R&D Project," with the specific topic being "Development of Semiconductor Device Manufacturing Technology Using Optical Chiplet Packaging Technology." The five companies will build a pilot production line aimed at actual factory application and conduct evaluation and verification. Using the R&D stage as a reference, the project will strive to increase production efficiency to more than 10 times the original level, with a focus on verifying whether efficient mass-production processes can truly be implemented.

The five companies will divide responsibilities and collaborate according to their respective technical expertise. NTT Innovative Devices will lead the development of manufacturing, testing, and packaging technologies; Japan Semiconductor, under the Toshiba Group, will be responsible for silicon photonics mass-production technology suitable for heterogeneous material integration; Furukawa Electric will be responsible for technologies related to compound optical semiconductors; and Shinko Electric Industries will be responsible for optical chiplet packaging technology and mass-production processes such as process testing.

NTT will not directly participate in R&D execution, but will be responsible for coordinating cooperation among the companies, promoting supply chain development, and providing support for the establishment of mass-production technology for photonic-electronic fusion devices.

Note: Compiled based on corporate announcements and information related to the approved publicly solicited topics of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

In fact, the five companies already had a foundation for cooperation. Since fiscal year 2023, they have carried out R&D on optical chiplet packaging technology under the same NEDO project framework, exploring the use of optical connections in semiconductor packages and chips. The approval of this new project means that the R&D focus will shift further from basic technology exploration to mass-production process development, promoting the integrated development of manufacturing, testing, optical connection, and packaging.

With the rapid spread of generative AI, data center power consumption continues to grow. The training and inference of large language models require the deployment of large numbers of GPUs, and the volume of data exchanged between chips is also increasing rapidly. Traditional electrical interconnects are facing increasing pressure in terms of bandwidth and power consumption, and how to reduce energy consumption in inter-chip communication has become an important technical issue for the global semiconductor industry. Photonic-electronic fusion technology is an important direction for addressing this challenge. By replacing electrical signals with optical signals for data transmission, inter-chip interconnects are expected to improve communication performance while reducing energy consumption.

At the same time, photonic-electronic fusion is also one of the core technologies of NTT's next-generation communication infrastructure concept IOWN (Innovative Optical and Wireless Network). To achieve widespread opticalization from communication networks to chip interconnects inside semiconductors, laboratory prototypes alone are not enough; it is also necessary to establish manufacturing processes capable of stable, large-scale production.

Japan accelerates its layout, while mass production and commercialization remain to be verified

This cooperation is also of great significance to Japan's semiconductor industry. At present, advanced logic semiconductor manufacturing still relies heavily on overseas companies. If Japan can accumulate complete technical capabilities from manufacturing and packaging to testing in the field of photonic-electronic fusion, it will help strengthen the domestic optical semiconductor supply chain. This direction also echoes the advanced semiconductor industry policy promoted by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

However, there are still many challenges in moving from R&D results to large-scale production. Optical chiplets not only involve bonding between different materials but also require high-precision optical axis alignment, and their process control requirements differ from those of traditional semiconductors that use only electrical connections. Therefore, whether the pilot production line can verify a reproducible process and further translate it into yield improvements in actual factories will become the key to determining the pace of commercialization. The five companies plan to advance verification work on the pilot production line in stages. As demand for high-speed, low-power interconnects continues to grow in next-generation AI infrastructure, the progress of mass production of photonic-electronic fusion technology deserves continued attention.

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