Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. will start mass production of a DFB laser diode chip with an optical output of 100mW, one of the highest outputs in the industry, from January 2024.
As telecommunications traffic increases mainly at data centers following the widespread use of cloud services and the launch of generative AI, transmission speeds are required to further increase from the current 400Gbps to 800Gbps and 1.6Tbps.
Single wavelength light source
Intensity modulation optical transceivers are broadly used at data centers. In recent years, increased focus has been directed toward silicon photonics technology, which has advantages in terms of small size, high integration, low power consumption, and DFB laser diode chips are often adopted as a high output, single wavelength light source.
The equipped DFB laser diode chips are required to have even higher output
Within this trend, because optical loss increases during high speed intensity modulation at higher transmission speeds, the equipped DFB laser diode chips are required to have even higher output. However, at the same time, the increased use of optical transceivers and other devices results in the problem of increased energy use at data centers and network base stations.
Advances in optical communication
Using InP semiconductor chip technology experience accumulated over the years, they developed a DFB laser diode chip with a high output power of 100mW - one of the highest in the world in September 2022, and they will begin mass production in January 2024. The higher efficiency of this chip improves the wall-plug efficiency to 22% compared to the 16% wall-plug efficiency of existing products. As a result, this chip is expected to be used in high-performance optical transceivers for high-volume communications exceeding 800Gbps and reduce energy use at data centers. They plan to exhibit this chip at ECOC 2023 scheduled to be held in Glasgow, UK on October 2-4.
Research will continue to develop and commercialize high-performance semiconductor laser light sources as a company in the laser business, and they will contribute to realizing a truly prosperous, sustainable society through advances in optical communication.
