CEA-Leti and NcodiN announced a strategic collaboration to industrialize NcodiN’s optical interposer technology on a 300 mm integrated photonics process. The announcement was made at OFC. NcodiN, a French deep-tech startup founded in 2023, specializes in nanolaser-enabled photonic interconnects. The company received €16 million in seed financing in November of the previous year.
The partnership aims to transition NcodiN’s proof-of-concept work to industrial-grade 300 mm processes. This involves moving beyond copper interconnects toward scalable, in-package, long-reach optical links for future computing architectures and AI chips. As AI systems require significant increases in bandwidth and energy efficiency, the industry is shifting from copper to optical interconnects. NcodiN is developing NConnect, an integrated optical interconnect platform powered by what it describes as the world’s smallest laser on silicon, which is 500 times smaller than current industry-standard devices. The nanolaser-enabled photonic interposers support ultra-dense integration exceeding 5,000 nanolasers per mm² and energy operation around 0.1 pJ/bit.
The collaboration leverages CEA-Leti’s expertise in advanced photonics integration to transition NcodiN’s nanolaser to a 300 mm silicon photonics platform. This step supports scalable, wafer-level optical interconnects for high-end computing and AI applications.
Francesco Manegatti, co-founder and CEO of NcodiN, stated that the company’s nanolaser-enabled photonic interconnects address the bottleneck of bulky, inefficient photonic components that have limited large-scale adoption. The collaboration with CEA-Leti seeks to demonstrate NConnect’s compatibility with 300 mm wafers, which is required for commercial-scale production and cost-effective use in AI-centric processors and high-bandwidth computing systems.
Sébastien Dauvé, CEO of CEA-Leti, described the transition of photonics to a 300 mm CMOS-compatible process as a turning point for optical interconnects. He noted that it enables production at the scale, cost, and reliability needed by the AI industry. The partnership aligns with CEA-Leti’s mission to transfer advanced semiconductor and microelectronics technologies to industry for various markets.
The collaboration is presented as a foundational step toward scalable, wafer-level optical interconnects for next-generation computing.
