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15 Jul 2025
Facility due to open in September will represent the Japanese firm's first overseas research center.
Dai Nippon Printing (DNP), a Japanese conglomerate with expertise ranging from semiconductor photomasks to anti-glare display films, is set to open a new facility in The Netherlands that will be dedicated to co-packaged optics (CPO) research.
Said to represent the first overseas research center in the Tokyo-listed company’s 150-year history, the site is located at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven (HTCE), and is scheduled to begin operations in September.
Regarded as one of the leading innovation hubs in Europe, HTCE is home to around 300 companies and research institutes, as well as more than 12,500 researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs.
A number of those companies are active in the optics and photonics sector, for example component maker ams Osram and pluggable module maker Effect Photonics.
DNP’s focus on CPO development, which integrates photonics with electronics to enable high-speed chip-to-chip connections that reduce power consumption in data centers, follows the recent signing of an agreement on the topic with the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO).
“These activities will be promoted in conjunction with the Photonic Integration Technology Centre (PITC), a research organization located on campus that connects basic research to the mass production of photonic chips,” explained DNP.
Energy effciency
The agreement covers three years of joint research with PITC and other HTCE-based organizations, with the aim of acquiring cutting-edge technologies such as precision patterning technology for optical materials related to CPO.
While its history is rooted in letterpress printing equipment, DNP subsequently diversified to become a key player providing anti-reflection and anti-glare optical films for liquid-crystal displays and TVs, and photomasks used in semiconductor wafer production.
Citing the huge impact that the emergence of generative AI is having on data center energy consumption, DNP added in a release announcing its Eindhoven expansion:
“As it is expected that electrical-based high-speed transmission will not be able to keep up with the expansion of information distribution, there is a demand for the development of technology that transmits all information using light instead of electricity.
“In response to this need, CPO technology is expected to be deployed in next-generation semiconductors.
“DNP has designated semiconductor-related products and services as a focus business area in the current medium-term management plan, and is promoting the development of high-value-added products.
“As part of these efforts, we are promoting the development of packaged components for CPO that integrate optical circuits with electrical circuits.
“At HTCE, DNP will promote open innovation bringing together a diverse range of companies, human resources and technologies. In doing so, we will not only promote CPO, but also create new businesses that leverage our strengths.”
Several major players in the tech industry have recently announced their own efforts to develop and adopt CPO, notably Nvidia, AMD, and IBM.
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