NTT and Fujitsu recently announced their strategic business alliance on a new, energy-efficient digital society founded on global and open collaboration with a wide range of partners supporting the IOWN (Innovative Optical and Wireless Network) initiative.
Specifically, Fujitsu and NTT will conduct joint research and development activities in areas including open architecture optical transport and mobile communications, combined with disaggregated high-performance computing, all of which are made possible by photonics-electronics convergence device innovation.
As part of the deal, NTT Electronics, which develops hardware products utilizing NTT R&D’ s advanced device technologies, will acquire a 66.6% stake in Fujitsu Advanced Technologies (FATEC), which possesses semiconductor mounting technology. FATEC will begin business as NTT Electronics Cross Technologies, and commence operations on June 1, 2021.
By the end of fiscal year 2022, the new company will start to provide compact, power-saving optical communication co-packages that integrate digital coherent optical communications LSIs and COSA (Coherent Optical Sub Assembly) based on silicon photonics technology.
The two companies are promoting an open approach in which white box and general-purpose software can be supported in multiple vendor environments, shifting away from the existing, vertically-integrated model that relies on specific vendors, with the ultimate aim of encouraging a climate in which a variety of innovative ICT services can be realized to bring flexibility for a new digital society.
In the field of optical transport communications, Fujitsu and NTT will work together to plan new optical devices based on an open architecture, build system products developed by Fujitsu, and control supply chain management. The two partners aim to expand the business globally with a strategic entry into the data center interconnect market, where demand is expected to grow and the adoption of open architectures is accelerating.
