April 17, 2023
QDLaser, Inc.

Received orders of 60,000-unit quantum dot lasers
for mass production of silicon photonics chips in optical wiring,with the shipment starting this May
QD Laser Inc. (Headquarters: Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture; President & CEO: Dr.
Mitsuru Sugawara) has received orders of 60,000-unit quantum dot lasers for mass production
from AIO Core Co.,Ltd. (Headquarters: Bunkyo ward, Tokyo; CEO: Hidetaka Fukuda). QDLaser
is to start shipping in May. Quantum dot lasers are essential light sources for silicon photonics
chips that cannot emit light. They are mounted on the silicon photonics chip "IOCore (productname)" for optical wiring. Directly connecting semiconductor LSIs via high-speed optical wiring
instead of conventional copper wiring leads to dramatically improved information processing
speed of computers. Quantum dot lasers and IOCore, starting mass production this time, are to
be implemented in various application fields such as data center servers, 5G/6G base stations, AI
engines, medical equipment, aircraft, and automobiles all over the world in the next few years.
QD Laser, the only company in the world capable of mass-producing quantum dot lasers, will
strengthen its mass-production system toward a vast optical wiring market rivaling the tens ofmillions of annual optical communication laser market.

[Quantum dot laser and IOCore]A quantum dot laser is a semiconductor laser that
amplifies and oscillates light using semiconductor quantum
dots with a diameter of about 10 nm (about 1/10 the size ofa virus) in the active layer (Fig. 1). This quantum dot laser
has the excellent feature of1) operating from -40°C to around 120°C without current

Figure 1 Quantum dot laser

adjustment,2) operating ultra-high temperatures of 200°C or higher,3) being highly reliable and having a long life, and4) introducing laser light into the silicon photonics chips
with low noise.
IOCore is an epoch-making ultra-compact (5 mm square)
optical wiring chip with this quantum dot laser as a lightsourceFigure 2 IOCore with quantum dot laser(Fig. 2). Using quantum dot lasers in the opticalwiring of LSIs, which are exposed to high temperatures,
realizes high reliability and low cost even in a hightemperature environment exceeding 100 degrees and at
ultra-high speed (100 to 500 Gb/s).
QD Laser, the only company in the world capable of massproducing quantum dot lasers, has supplied 4.5 million

Figure 3 Four-channel quantum dot laser

quantum dot laser chips to the optical communications market. Furthermore, in collaboration withAIO Core, QD Laser has succeeded in developing a "4-channel quantum dot laser" that enables largecapacity transmission of silicon photonics and have received orders for mass production (Fig. 3).
[Background and aims of why QD laser is involved in the quantum dot laser business (Fig. 4)]
From the 1980s, the social implementation of optical communication systems between continents,
between/within cities, and within buildings/homes began. Since 1995, the use of the Internet basedon optical communication has started. With the spread of cloud computing and mobile
communications represented by mobile phones and smartphones in the 2000s, we are now entering
an era in which humans and the information world merge. With the rapid development of big dataapplications, like AI natural language processing and image recognition, and the imminentimplementation of the Metaverse in society, how to respond to the information explosion is a major
global issue.
Through the development and mass production of quantum dot lasers, indispensable for silicon
photonics optical wiring, QD Laser contributes to solving this problem by dramatically improving
computer information processing capabilities and playing a role in the fusion era of humans and theinformation world.

Figure 4 Background and aims of why QD laser is involved in the quantum dot laser business.

[Silicon photonics]
Silicon photonics is a technology that integrates optical functional elements on silicon substrates torealize low-cost, high-performance optical circuits. Miniaturization and low power consumption open
their applications to data communication, inter-board/inter-LSI chip communication, LiDAR, etc. Of
the optical functional elements, photodetectors, optical modulators, and optical waveguides can bemade of silicon. Still, since silicon does not emit light, it is necessary to mount a semiconductor laser
chip on silicon as a light-emitting element.

[AIO Core Co., Ltd. and IOCore]AIO Core is the first spin-offed company that has inherited some of the intellectual property rights
and technologies of research results from the Photonics and Electronics Convergence Technology
Research Institute (PETRA). The company's mass-produced IOCore is a 5mm square opticaltransceiver chip fabricated on a silicon substrate using silicon photonics technology. It has atransmission speed of 25 Gbps per channel, and two-way communication with a transmission speedof 100 Gbps or more is possible with four channels.
(Product information https://www.aiocore.com/products)[Comment from Mr. Hidetaka Fukuda, CEO of AIO Core]AIO Core develops and produces photonic-electronic conversion devices used in computing. Currently,
copper wires have been used in computing because of their reliability and low cost. However, photonicelectronic conversion devices used in computing require high reliability in the high-temperature
range (up to 100°C). IOCore achieves this by fusing quantum dot lasers with the world's mostadvanced silicon photonics technology. In the future, we expect that the field of application ofphotonic-electronic conversion devices will rapidly expand not only to High-Performance Computers(HPC), 5G/6G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) but also to medical equipment,semiconductor manufacturing equipment, aircraft, automobiles, and space.
[Comment from Dr. Mitsuru Sugawara, President & CEO of QD Laser]
We are the first in the world to have succeeded in the mass production of quantum dot lasers for
optical communication, which was once said to be "impossible to realize." QD Laser was named bytaking the English initials of this quantum dot laser. Mass production of quantum dot lasers for LSI
optical wiring has been the primary target since the establishment of QD Laser. Using our uniquelaser technology, we aim to dramatically improve information processing capacity and continue totake on the challenge of expanding the possibilities of humankind, such as support for the visuallyimpaired, prevention of eye diseases, and augmentation of vision.
[Inquiries regarding this matter]
QD Laser Inc., Laser Device Division
Email: sales@qdlaser.com