Development of a high output 100mW DFB laser diode chip

Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. (Head Office: 2-6-4 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Keiichi Kobayashi) successfully developed a DFB laser diode chip with an industry leading 100mW output.

Following the widespread use of data communication services, including cloud services and 5G, data traffic volumes continue to increase. Intensity-modulation optical transceivers are widely used at data centers. In recent years, silicon photonics technology ^{(note 1)}, having significant benefits in terms of small size, high integration, low power consumption and low cost, have been broadly adopted. Many of these transceivers are equipped with DFB laser diode chips, providing a single-wavelength, high output power light source.
The performance of optical transceivers continues to increase along with the growth in data traffic. The former transmission speed was 400Gbps, but this is increasing to speeds exceeding 800Gbps, up to 1.6Tbps (Fig. 1). As transmission speed increases, the optical loss during high-speed, high-intensity modulation rises, making it necessary to have a DFB laser diode chip with increased output power. At the same time, the use of optical transceivers and other devices in the network equipment at data centers and network base stations has increased, and the growing power consumption is becoming an important issue.

As GAFAM and the other large IT companies continue to actively invest in data centers, we are supplying DFB laser diode chips to multiple customers including optical transceiver manufacturers, where our products are highly regarded for their world class output power characteristics and reliability.
Using InP (Indium Phosphide, ^{note 2}) semiconductor chip technology experience accumulated over the years, we have successfully developed a DFB laser diode chip with high output power of 100mW - one of the highest in the world (Fig. 2). Through this new advancement, it will be possible to realize high performance optical transceivers that support at least 800Gbps large volume data communication, as well as respond to further growth in overall data traffic. Also, the creation of high performance transceivers using our high output power DFB laser diode chip as a key component should limit power consumption by the optical transceiver and reduce overall power consumption at the data center.
We plan to exhibit this new product at the European Conference on Optical Communication 2022 (ECOC 2022) scheduled to be held in Basel, Switzerland from September 19-22.

Research will continue to develop and commercialize high performance semiconductor laser light sources as a leading company in the laser business, and we will contribute to realizing a truly prosperous, sustainable society through advances in optical communication.