PHOGRAIN to Release 400Gbps Back-Illuminated PIN PD Chip at CIOE 2026

The rollout comes as optical transceiver modules rapidly migrate from 800G to 1.6T and 3.2T rates to handle surging traffic inside AI data centers. PHOGRAIN said the 400Gbps PIN PD chip is among the industry's first same-rate products and provides core receiving-side support for the next-generation high-speed modules.

Yang Yanwei, PHOGRAIN's CTO, was quoted as saying: "The release of the 400Gbps back-illuminated PIN PD chip is an important milestone for us on the frontier high-speed optical chip track. We have been oriented by global market demand and the evolution of next-generation optical interconnection technologies, and we will keep investing over the long term." He added that the company expects deeper collaboration with optical device makers, equipment vendors, operators and other partners to accelerate product iteration and bring next-generation high-speed optical interconnection to scale.

The chip achieves a breakthrough in performance and manufacturability, the company said. Through charge-compensation technology, it can produce a uniform electric field under high current density, helping overcome conventional PIN PD bottlenecks in bandwidth, optoelectronic conversion efficiency and saturation current. Its core specifications are said to be aligned with the global first tier. The chip also uses a backside integrated lens design that merges a microlens onto the chip during fabrication, so core optical integration is completed when the chip leaves the factory. PHOGRAIN says this can help downstream optical transceiver makers reduce lens-alignment complexity, improve yield and lower mass-manufacturing costs.

PHOGRAIN operates a vertically integrated manufacturing chain covering epitaxial wafer development, chip structure design, fabrication, testing and packaging, rather than relying on a fabless model, according to the report. All core steps are under proprietary intellectual-property control, enabling stable, flexible and large-scale delivery. The company has production bases in Shenzhen, Xuzhou, Bengbu, Singapore, Malaysia and a planned base in Thailand. Its product matrix covers 2.5Gbps to 400Gbps ranges and includes PIN PD, APD, MPD and SPAD chips. Products comply with Telcordia GR-468-CORE, RoHS 2.0, IATF16949 and AEC-Q102, the report said.

Beyond data-center interconnect, APD chips are applied to automotive LiDAR and long-distance optical transmission, MPD chips to optical-power monitoring and laser positioning, and SPAD chips to quantum optics and quantum communication. Sensor-based chips also cover intelligent equipment, environmental monitoring and gas detection, according to the report.

PHOGRAIN said it will continue to align product development with global market demands and work with partners to verify technologies and scale applications. Its six-base global layout is intended to flexibly respond to customers' verification, volume-production and supply needs across regions.