Black Semiconductor has acquired fellow graphene technology company Applied Nanolayers (ANL). With the acquisition, Black Semiconductor plans to accelerate technology development of energy-efficient high-performance chip technology. Black Semiconductor anticipates the acquisition to advance the timeline for technology development by two years. The acquisition combines Black Semiconductor’s expertise in chip architectures and photonic process technology with ANL’s specialized knowledge in graphene material production. ANL uses a semi-automated 200-mm process platform capable of producing 10,000 wafers per year, which will be scaled up to a fully automated 300-m process to reach more than a million wafers per year. The addition of ANL follows the opening of Black Semiconductor’s FabONE headquarters in January, and positions the company to build a 300-mm wafer pilot line later this year for its integrated graphene photonic chips. The company is planning for volume production by 2029. The business of graphene photonics Though graphene is a frequent focus of R&D efforts targeting the intersection of photonics and materials science, it is the business sector that has led a recent wave of positive momentum in graphene photonics in a variety of use cases. Most recently, 2D Photonics subsidiary CamGraPhIC raised $27 million to support the company's continued development of graphene photonics transceivers for AI and cellular data applications. The financing came after Akhetonics brought in $6.3 million late last year to fuel development of its full-stack all-optical general purpose processor. Akhetonics is part of the EU-funded Graphene-based All-Optical Technology Platform for Secure Internet of Things (GATEPOST) project, which reported its first photonic integrated chip last May. In the electronics and quantum technology spaces, Paragraf — which previously achieved mass production of graphene-based devices using standard semiconductor processes — established a partnership with the University of Birmingham to further the development of graphene devices for quantum computing. The partners aim to develop cryogenic testing of graphene devices to study their properties at the ultra-low temperatures required for many quantum applications. And last week, AIXTRON SE became a partner in the Graphene as a functional layer in UVC LEDs (GraFunkL) project, which will study the use of novel UVC LEDs against multi-resistant hospital pathogens as well as the application of graphene over wafers up to 150 mm in diameter.