Quintessent, a start-up based in Santa Barbara, California, closed $11.5 million in venture funding for its workin in heterogeneous silicon photonics and quantum dot laser technology.
The seed round was oversubscribed and included was led by Osage University Partners (OUP) with new investors including M Ventures, and joining existing investors Sierra Ventures, Foothill Ventures, and Entrada Ventures.
“We are grateful for the support from our new and existing investors who all recognize the need for foundational innovations to catalyze sustainable and reliable interconnect scaling for the era of accelerated computing,” said Alan Liu, CEO and co-founder of Quintessent.
Liu was previously an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton and advised on various photonics R&D programs for clients at DARPA and ARPA-E. Alan obtained his PhD from Professor John Bowers’ group at UCSB where he performed research that is now part of Quintessent’s core technology.
- Last year, Quintessent and Tower Semiconductor demonstrated a world first in heterogeneously integrating O-band GaAs quantum dot (QD) lasers with a commercial foundry silicon photonics process. Tower's PH18DB platform is targeted for optical transceiver modules in datacenters and telecom networks, as well as new emerging applications in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, LiDAR and other sensors.
- The companies, which are collaborating under the DARPA LUMOS program, cited benefits of semiconductor quantum dot lasers and amplifiers over traditional quantum well materials:
- Lower relative intensity noise (RIN) in multiwavelength lasers
- Optical amplifiers with near ideal noise figure
- Improved optical feedback tolerance for isolator-free, on chip lasers
- The ability to operate efficiently at high ambient temperatures
- Significantly improved component reliability and lifetimes
- Heterogeneous integration of lasers/amplifier functionality and other silicon photonic elements on common substrate presents significant benefits such as:
- New product architectures and functionalities otherwise not achievable using external lasers, for example complete self-test at the chip level, or on-chip amplification
- Reduced cost
- Reduced power consumption and improved link margin
- Improved system reliability
