Quintessent and IQE partner on quantum dot epitaxial wafers
The companies say they are establishing the world’s first large-scale supply chain for quantum dot epitaxial wafers for lasers and semiconductor optical amplifiers, which they say can help to meet AI’s future demands for advanced optical interconnects
Quintessent, a company developing quantum dot laser technology and heterogeneous silicon photonics, has announced that it has partnered with IQE, a global supplier of advanced epitaxial wafer products and services, to establish a large-scale quantum dot laser and semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) epitaxial wafer supply chain, which they say will be the world’s first. The companies say this collaboration, supported by purchase order commitments from Quintessent, will see IQE deliver production quantities of epitaxial wafers to Quintessent throughout 2025.
The ever-growing demand for larger parameter models for AI training and inferencing necessitates the interconnectedness of disaggregated compute and memory resources with high bandwidth, low latency, low energy consumption and high reliability, which can only be met with advanced optical interconnects. The laser source within the optical interconnect is a major driver of all these performance metrics, but conventional laser technology and the associated III-V supply chain falls short of AI’s future demands. Reliability of the laser is especially crucial and is perceived to be a limiting factor in scaling optical interconnects for future AI “factories.” The use of quantum dot material provides a foundational breakthrough for laser and SOA technology resulting in longer lifetimes for enhanced reliability, wider operating temperatures, higher wall plug efficiency, lower noise, and higher immunity to back reflections.
According to Quintessent and IQE, the supply of high-quality and high-volume quantum dot epitaxial wafers for laser sources and SOAs had been limited until the two companies achieved recent breakthroughs, which have been in the making for the past decade, including research that was spun out of John Bower’s laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Transitioning the gallium arsenide-based quantum dot research to high-volume production has resulted in highly optimised and high-performing gain material on 6-inch diameter epitaxial wafers that can produce several hundreds of millions of edge-emitting lasers and SOAs per year, the companies add.
“The performance, cost, and reliability advantages that quantum dot-based lasers and amplifiers enable over their quantum well counterparts are exactly what our customers are demanding to address the soaring need for optical connectivity in AI driven compute,” said Alan Liu, CEO and co-founder of Quintessent. “Through our partnership with IQE, we have brought this transformative technology to scale, positioning us to be the leader in delivering solutions leveraging quantum dot laser and SOA technology.”
Mark Furlong, chief revenue officer of IQE added: “IQE is very pleased to have received this commitment from Quintessent. Our long-term partnership on commercial products and DoD programmes has yielded QDL wafers with excellent reproducibility and lasing performance. In addition to expertise in volume manufacturing of epitaxial wafers, our partnership with Quintessent demonstrates IQE's strong track record in scaling the manufacturing readiness of new product into volume production.”
