News: Suppliers
31 August 2026
Sumitomo Chemical begins mass production of 4-inch InP epiwafers
Japan-based Sumitomo Chemical Co Ltd has established mass production of 4-inch indium phosphide (InP) epitaxial wafers at its Ibaraki Works in Hitachi, Ibaraki Prefecture, and has begun selling the new products.
The firm says that, as one of the few epi houses in Japan capable of stably mass producing InP epiwafers, it targets sales of about ¥10bn from this product by the mid-2030s.
Picture: InP epiwafer.
With the widespread adoption of generative AI, along with the expansion of IoT and cloud services, and the enhancement of communication network infrastructure, there is growing demand for data processing that is faster and capable of handling larger volumes of data across a wide range of fields, notes Sumitomo Chemical. For AI data centers in particular, power consumption and information processing loads have become major global challenges. Photonic-electronic convergence technologies are attracting attention as a key solution. Among these technologies, InP epiwafers are seeing rapidly increasing use in next-generation data centers and high-speed networks as a core material for enabling high-performance optoelectronic devices. Demand for InP epiwafers is expected to grow significantly in the future.
InP epiwafer manufacturing requires advanced technologies to precisely control material composition and surface conditions in the epitaxial growth process under high temperature. In addition, sophisticated process management is necessary throughout the entire manufacturing process, including the handling of raw material gases, in order to achieve both stable operations and quality assurance.
Sumitomo Chemical says that, to address these challenges, it has brought together its proprietary composition control, thin-film stacking, and crystal growth process control technologies cultivated through more than 25 years of mass-producing gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN) epiwafers. These technologies have enabled the firm to establish a mass-production system for InP epiwafers that is said to combine high quality with high productivity.
Sumitomo Chemical is positioning its ICT & Mobility Solutions business as a growth driver and is focusing on semiconductor-related businesses as a priority area. Going forward, the firm will add InP epiwafers to its lineup of compound semiconductor materials, which includes GaN substrates, GaN epiwafers and GaAs epiwafers, as it aims to further expand its business into growth markets, such as wireless communications, power semiconductors, and data centers.
Sumitomo Chemical exhibiting compound semiconductor products at Photonics West
