Tokyo – October 20, 2026 -- A four-company consortium led by NTT Innovative Devices has been selected for a NEDO-backed project to build mass-production technologies for optical chiplets, with a target of more than a tenfold gain in manufacturing productivity over current R&D-stage processes.
Four manufacturers join the NEDO-selected consortium
The members are NTT Innovative Devices, Japan Semiconductor Corporation, Furukawa Electric and Shinko Electric Industries. NTT, Inc. participates as an advisor. The project falls under the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization's program for enhanced post-5G information and communication infrastructure, specifically its development of manufacturing technologies for advanced semiconductors. Japan Semiconductor is a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation.
Pilot production line targets commercial-scale manufacturing
The companies will combine expertise in optical semiconductors, silicon photonics, optical interconnects, semiconductor packaging and mass-production processes. They will establish and evaluate a pilot production line designed for future commercial manufacturing. The scope covers the full value chain, from photonic device fabrication and testing to optical interconnects and advanced packaging.
NTT's advisory role centers on industry collaboration and supply chain development to speed up commercialization and large-scale production of photonics-electronics convergence (PEC) devices.
Power consumption in chip-to-chip links drives demand for PEC
Rapid adoption of generative AI is driving growth in data processing demand across AI data centers and high-performance computing systems. Power consumption from chip-to-chip communication has become a major constraint. PEC technologies move data at high speed with significantly lower power use.
An optical chiplet combines a photonic integrated circuit with an electronic integrated circuit through high-density packaging. It replaces electrical signals with optical signals for data transmission between processors such as CPUs and GPUs.
NTT has led optical chiplet packaging R&D under NEDO since fiscal 2023
Under the same NEDO program, NTT has led development of optical chiplet packaging technologies that use light to connect semiconductor packages and chips since fiscal year 2023. The new project moves from that development work toward manufacturing.
The participants state that the effort will strengthen Japan's domestic semiconductor manufacturing capabilities and foster collaboration among companies and research institutions to build a globally competitive PEC supply chain. They also aim to help reduce the growing energy consumption of data centers.