Aachen-based startup Black Semiconductor opened its new production facility FabONE in February 2025, then a month later acquired materials specialist Applied Nanolayers. With 254 million euros in total funding and a concrete roadmap, the company aims to run the world's first factory for graphene photonics chips by 2031. That would be a genuine first in an industry where Europe has played almost no role until now.
What Graphene Photonics Can Do
Conventional chips communicate internally via electrical signals. This creates a bottleneck: the more transistors packed onto a chip, the more energy is consumed purely for data transfer between units. Black Semiconductor is pursuing a different approach.
The company combines two different signal types on a single chip: electrons for computing and photons, particles of light, for communication between areas of the chip. The material graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, is better suited for this than silicon because it conducts light with exceptional efficiency. The technology is called Integrated Graphene Photonics and has been developed for more than 14 years at the AMO research center in Aachen, from which Black Semiconductor was spun out in 2021.
For data centers this is particularly relevant. These facilities consume ever more electricity as demand for AI computation and cloud services grows. Chips that communicate internally with light rather than electricity could meaningfully reduce energy consumption while increasing data transfer speeds.
254 Million Euros From Two Sources
In October 2024, Black Semiconductor announced it had raised a total of 254.4 million euros. The largest portion, 228.7 million euros, comes from public funds: the German federal government and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia are supporting the project through the European IPCEI program for microelectronics, which provides financial backing for strategic semiconductor projects in the EU. Private investors contributed a further 25.7 million euros, including Porsche Ventures and Project A Ventures.
This mix is typical for European semiconductor projects where lead times and investment sums are too large to be financed by venture capital alone. Taiwan Semiconductor and Samsung invest double-digit billions annually; 254 million euros is modest by industry standards but sufficient for a first demonstration factory.
FabONE and a Strategic Acquisition
In February 2025, Black Semiconductor opened FabONE at its Rothe Erde site in Aachen. The building provides 15,000 square meters for production and cleanrooms plus 2,000 square meters of office space. Here the company is advancing its technology and preparing the next production stage.
A month later came the acquisition of Applied Nanolayers (ANL), a Dutch specialist in graphene material production. Controlling the base materials in-house allows faster iteration and reduces dependence on external suppliers. Black Semiconductor says the acquisition accelerates its technology development by roughly two years.
Roadmap to Volume Production
Black Semiconductor has published a detailed timeline. Construction of a 300-millimeter wafer pilot line begins this year. In 2026 this line becomes operational; pilot production starts in 2027. Volume production is planned from 2029, with full volume targeted for 2031. The workforce is expected to grow from around 30 today to 120 over the same period.
The goal is ambitious: there is currently no graphene photonics factory anywhere in the world operating at industrial scale. Silicon photonics already exists in various forms, but using graphene as the optical material is new. Whether this holds up in practice is what the 2026 pilot line is designed to answer.
2026 as the First Real Test
2026 is the decisive year for the first credible test. If the pilot line comes online as planned, Black Semiconductor can demonstrate for the first time whether the technology can be transferred from the laboratory to production. That is the critical hurdle at which many advanced materials technologies fail. If the transition succeeds, pilot production begins in 2027 and with it the first commercial step toward volume manufacturing.