Furukawa Electric and Fujitsu Optical Components to Collaborate on the Development of Next-Generation Integrated Devices for Optical Communications

Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. (Head Office: 2-6-4 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Keiichi Kobayashi; hereafter “Furukawa Electric”) and Fujitsu Optical Components Limited (Head Office: 4-1-1 Kamikodanaka, Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa; President & CEO: Kazuhiko Taniguchi; hereafter “FOC”) have agreed to collaborate on the development of next-generation integrated devices. As optical devices are becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated, Furukawa Electric and FOC aim to create world-class, top-performing devices for next-generation communications networks by combining the technologies of both companies in order to respond to the explosive increase in communications traffic and demand for reduced power consumption. Furthermore, Furukawa Electric and FOC aim to bring together the two companies’ optical device products for digital coherent systems in order to offer specialized transceiver solutions to our customers in the Asia region, a market where such solutions will be in high demand.

Communication networks, the foundation of all industrial infrastructures, must undergo a dramatic evolution (see Fig. 1). Mobile communications have already evolved from 4G to 5G, and communications traffic is now experiencing explosive growth due to the expansion of cloud-based business and online services. As traffic demand increases, the capacity of switches used in hyperscale data center networks is also increasing rapidly, and the speed of the transceivers used has increased to 400 Gbps and 800 Gbps, creating greater need for devices that can handle higher bandwidths. Transceivers for use between data centers must be more compact and consume less power. To meet this challenge, high performance and compact integration of optical devices is essential, and there is an increasingly wide range of technology required to achieve this.
It is amid this background that Furukawa Electric and FOC aim to develop high-performance products and propose new solutions by taking advantage of the two companies’ respective strengths.

Furukawa Electric and FOC have long been leading the communications market by pioneering the commercialization of cutting-edge fiber, ITLAs (integrable tunable laser assemblies), optical amplifiers, optical transmitters and receivers, and other such products. Furukawa Electric leads the industry in the field of variable wavelength lasers, while FOC holds the top share in the global market for optical transceiver devices. Through this collaboration, we will fuse together Furukawa Electric’s compound optical semiconductor technology and FOC’s LN/silicon photonics technology to develop integrated devices for next-generation, high-capacity optical communication that are both high in performance and compact in size, bringing together both companies’ technologies to create something that cannot be achieved by these components individually. We aim to deploy these integrated devices globally for the over 800 Gbps transceiver market, supporting the creation of world-leading innovation (see Fig. 2).

The use of digital coherent communications is expanding worldwide. However, due to the more complex technology and component structure than in the past, there is a growing need in Asia for solutions as well as individual components. In response to this demand, Furukawa Electric will collaborate with FOC to provide transceiver solutions that include FOC’s LN modulators ^{(note 1)}, ICRs ^{(note 2)}, and coherent optical devices for both optical integrated devices, in addition to Furukawa Electric’s ITLAs and optical amplifiers.

Furukawa Electric will continue to support the development of telecommunications based on R&D on high-performance laser light source products and to contribute to the realization of safe, secure and comfortable lifestyles.