Optical fiber enables virtually unlimited and lossless transmission compared to existing materials. Black Semiconductor is taking advantage of these benefits and transforming chip and system architecture by integrating photonic technologies into microchips, pushing the performance of existing technology beyond current physical limits.

Almost every electronic device uses microchips to process and store information. Cars, computers and production tools are good examples to underline their importance:

None of these devices would work without powerful microchips. Miniaturization and integration of multiple functions on one chip is the common strategy to increase system performance. Electronic devices such as computers have achieved higher and higher performance in recent decades by integrating more and more circuit elements on a microchip.

However, this scaling strategy comes up against physical and architectural limits that prevent further improvements. The main problem is that the chips cannot handle the massively growing volumes of data. How can this limitation be overcome? Light is the best known medium for transporting large amounts of information over short and long distances. Compared to copper wire, optical fiber enables virtually unlimited and loss-free transmission. These unique advantages are the reason why Internet communications are carried out over fiber optic communication systems. Despite decades of effort and experimentation, there is still no technology that makes the benefits of photonics technology available in all microchips. Black Semiconductor's goal is to bring the breakthrough benefits of optical circuits to every electronic chip. This integrated photonic technology makes it possible to transform chip and system architecture, pushing the performance of existing technology beyond current physical limits.

Black Semiconductor's technology is capable of solving critical problems in markets valued at up to 400 billion euros. The technology takes traditional electronic systems to the next level by combining photonics and electronics in any given chip. Examples include faster and better applications with improved energy efficiency in AI, autonomous driving, IoT, quantum computing or simply more efficient data centers.