OpenLight, a start-up based in Santa Barbara, California, introduced its open silicon photonics platform with integrated lasers.
OpenLight operates under the tagline, "Open. Integrated. Scalable." The open platform includes integrated lasers, optical amplifiers, modulators, photodetectors, and other key photonic components to form a complete solution for low-power, high-performance photonics ICs. In addition, OpenLight offers select PIC designs and design services to accelerate time-to-market.
The company says it aims to accelerate the development of high-performance photonic integrated circuits (PICs) in applications such as datacom, telecom, LiDAR, healthcare, HPC, AI, and optical computing. The technology has passed qualification and reliability tests on Tower's PH18DA production process. OpenLight expects the first open Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) shuttle run on the PH18DA process as well as 400G and 800G reference designs with integrated lasers to be available in Summer 2022.
By processing the Indium Phosphide (InP) materials directly on the silicon photonics wafer, the PH18DA platform reduces the cost and time of adding lasers, enabling volume scalability and improved power efficiency. In addition, monolithically integrated lasers improve overall reliability and simplify packaging.
"The rapidly growing silicon photonics market is being driven by the relentless demand for higher bandwidth needed to analyze, store and move complex data," said Dr. Thomas Mader, Chief Operating Officer at OpenLight. "OpenLight's open silicon photonics platform with integrated lasers enables scaling from one laser to hundreds, or even thousands of lasers per PIC, all monolithically integrated at the wafer level. With our platform, companies can enter emerging markets faster, accelerate new applications and completely change the way their teams build photonic systems of tomorrow."
"We strongly believe that OpenLight's technology will transform the silicon photonics industry," said Dr. Marco Racanelli, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Tower Semiconductor's Analog Business Unit. "Providing an open silicon photonics platform with integrated lasers that has been qualified on Tower's process will help mutual customers innovate and fuel the next generation of silicon photonics designs at scale. We are excited to partner with OpenLight in this journey."
http://www.openlightphotonics.com
- OpenLight is led by Dr. Thomas Mader, Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Daniel Sparacin, VP of Business Development and Strategy, and Dr. Volkan Kaman, VP of Engineering.
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