Photonic chips process and transmit information using light instead of electricity, guiding photons through microscopic structures on a chip.

Bees navigate their surroundings with astonishing precision. Their brains are now inspiring the design of tiny, low-power chips that could one day guide miniature robots and sensors.

Every so often, a semiconductor startup emerges claiming to have cracked a problem the industry’s biggest players have wrestled with for decades. Most fade quietly, but occasionally, one arrives that ...