CEA-Leti, NcodiN Partner to Industrialize 300 mm Silicon Photonics

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CEA-Leti and NcodiN, a French deep-tech startup pioneering nanolaser-enabled photonic interconnects, announced a strategic collaboration to industrialize NcodiN’s optical interposer technology on a 300 mm integrated photonics process.

NcodiN, which received €16 million in seed financing last November, is developing optical interconnects designed to relieve a critical data-movement bottleneck limiting performance in next-generation semiconductors. The collaboration will accelerate the company’s proof-of-concept work into industrial-grade 300 mm processes—moving beyond copper interconnects and marking a major step toward scalable, in-package, long-reach optical links for future computing architectures and artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

As AI systems demand orders of magnitude increases in bandwidth and energy efficiency, the industry is shifting from copper to optical interconnects.

‘World’s Smallest Laser on Silicon’

NcodiN is building NConnect, the integrated optical interconnect platform powered by the world’s smallest laser on silicon—500× smaller than today’s industry-standard devices. The company’s nanolaser-enabled photonic interposers pave the way to ultra-dense integration (>5,000 nanolasers/mm²) and record-low energy operation (~0.1 pJ/bit). Building on CEA-Leti’s advanced photonics integration expertise, NcodiN is transitioning its nanolaser to a 300 mm silicon photonics platform. This is a foundational step toward scalable, wafer-level optical interconnects for high-end computing and AI applications.

“NcodiN’s nanolaser-enabled photonic interconnects overcome the long-standing bottleneck of bulky, inefficient photonic components that have prevented large-scale adoption,” said Francesco Manegatti, co-founder and CEO of NcodiN. “Our collaboration with CEA-Leti aims to demonstrate NConnect’s compatibility with 300 mm wafers, which is essential for commercial-scale production and cost-effective adoption in AI-centric processors and high-bandwidth computing systems.”

‘Turning Point for Optical Interconnects’

Sébastien Dauvé, CEO of CEA-Leti, said the partnership underscores the two parties’ shared commitment to enabling scalable photonic infrastructure capable of meeting tomorrow’s computing demands.

“Transitioning photonics to a 300 mm CMOS-compatible process is a turning point for optical interconnects that can finally be produced at the scale, cost, and reliability the AI industry requires,” he said. “This collaboration with NcodiN highlights a key part of CEA-Leti’s mission: transferring advanced semiconductor and microelectronics technologies to industry, where they serve a range of vital markets.”