Analysis on the development status of domestic optical chip industry

Optical chips are the core components of optical modules. In the cost structure of optical modules, optical chips have the highest value, accounting for about 30% - 50% of the material cost, and some high-speed optical chips can even account for 60%. Optical chips are generally made of compound semiconductor materials (InP system and GaAs system, etc.). Through the generation and absorption of photons associated with the internal energy level transition process, the mutual conversion of photoelectric signals is achieved. The higher the speed of optical chips, the higher the difficulty of R&D and mass production. Next, we will talk about the development status of domestic optical chip industry through this article (ETU-LINK).

In recent years, due to the instability of the international situation and the frequent incidents of foreign power outage of domestic chips, domestic substitution has become a hot topic in the domestic semiconductor industry in recent years. According to data, domestic communication equipment accounts for 40% - 70% of the global share, but only about 19% of optical modules, and less than 1% of upstream optical chips.

At present, domestic optical chips are still dominated by middle and low end. In China, 10Gb/s lasers have been mass produced, and 25Gb/s lasers are close to maturity. DSP (digital signal processing chip) required for 200G and above high-speed optical modules using PAM4 technology to achieve bandwidth modulation still needs to be imported.

However, it is fortunate that the Fast Optical Module Engineering Technology Research Center of some domestic leading optical module enterprises said that they have achieved great breakthroughs in PAM4 optical module products such as 50G/400G, and have successively launched 50G QSFP28 PAM4 LR, 400G QSFP-DDSR8 and other products. Later, 50G QSFP28 BIDI/ER and 400G QSFP-DD DR4/FR4 will also be released in succession.

Due to the instability of foreign chip supply, some domestic optical module manufacturers have begun to deploy self-developed devices. The intensification of Sino US trade issues, as well as the US restrictions on Huawei ZTE to purchase US parts, will promote the investment in domestic chips. Huawei's 1.8 billion investment in the expansion of HiSilicon Optical factory is a good example.

Although the domestic low-end optical chip technology has been relatively mature, the lack of high-end chip technology is a major pain point in the domestic high-speed optical module manufacturing industry. High speed optical module manufacturers' demands on chip manufacturers mainly focus on performance, reliability, price and supply capacity. They pay more attention to price and supply capacity for low-end chips, while pay more attention to performance for high-end chips. Therefore, the performance stability and mass production capacity of high-end chips will become the main challenge of domestic high-end chips.

The stability and mass production capacity of optical chips depend on the accuracy and parameters of equipment, human experience and capital investment. The investment in optical chip equipment is large, and it is difficult to invest in R&D and production by one company alone without capital intervention. However, the domestic talent introduction environment and policies are relatively good, and research institutes can also be set up overseas, but the main problem is that the equipment investment is too large.