World's first HI of QD Lasers on Tower's SiPho Foundry Platform PH18
Date: 02/05/2023
Tower Semiconductor and Quintessent have collaborated in bringing world’s first heterogeneous integration of GaAs quantum dot (QD) lasers and a foundry silicon photonics platform (PH18DB). This technology is key in manufacturing high-speed optical transceiver modules for datacenters and telecom networks, and also for applications requiring high-speed transceivers such as AI ML based LiDAR and other sensors.
The silicon photonics transceiver market is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 24% reaching a total available market of $9B in 2025, as per LightCounting.
The new PH18DB platform offers GaAs based quantum dot lasers and semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) built on Tower's high-volume base PH18M silicon photonics foundry technology, that includes low loss waveguides, photodetectors, and modulators heterogeneously integrated on a single silicon chip. This platform will enable dense photonic integrated circuits (PICs) that can support higher-channel count in small form factor. Open foundry availability of this 220nm SOI platform will provide access to a broad array of product development teams, to simplify their PIC design through use of laser and SOA pcells, in addition to the feature rich baseline PH18 process.
Initial process design kits (PDK) for PH18DB have been made available in partnership with DARPA under the Lasers for Universal Microscale Optical Systems (LUMOS) program, which aims to bring high-performance lasers to advanced photonics platforms for commercial and defense applications, and MPWs are planned for 2023 and 2024.
This PH18DB platform complements Tower's previously announced, and now prototyping, PH18DA platform that offers heterogeneously integrated InP lasers, modulators and detectors.
These two heterogeneously integrated SiPho foundry platforms offer a rich set of devices and options to designers across the broad spectrum of leading edge applications. Tower continues to offer its silicon-only PH18MA platform, now in high volume production, for applications that do not require heterogeneous integration of III-V active elements.
Tower will be presenting its broad Optical technology offerings at the upcoming Optical Fiber Conference (OFC), March 7-9, 2023, in the San Diego Convention Center, CA. To learn more about the new technology announced and other manufacturing solutions, visit Tower's engineering team at the Company's booth #5317. For more details about the conference and presentation schedule, visit here.
For additional information on the PDK and MPW shuttle schedules for PH18DB, PH18DA and PH18M platforms, please visit here.
News Source: Tower Semiconductor
