News: Optoelectronics
15 November 2024
SMART Photonics and X-FAB collaborate on multi-Terabit transceivers
A strategic collaboration has been announced to use micro-transfer printing (MTP) for the heterogeneous integration of the silicon photonics platform of analog/mixed-signal and specialty foundry X-FAB Silicon Foundries SE of Tessenderlo, Belgium with the indium phosphide (InP) chiplets of independent pure-play InP photonic integrated circuit (PIC) foundry SMART Photonics of Eindhoven, The Netherlands, enabling new capabilities for datacom and telecom applications.
InP technology supports modulator bandwidths exceeding 120GHz, making it the optimal solution for next-generation multi-terabit telecom and datacom standards – pushing transceiver speeds far into the terabit realm. In contrast, market-leading silicon photonics technologies hit a performance ceiling at about 70GHz. The collaboration aims to deliver scalable, high-volume solutions that combine the best of both technologies.
By co-optimizing silicon photonics, InP and MTP technologies to fulfill customer requirements, the collaboration should enable new functionalities and improved system performance while reducing integration costs through relaxed photonics packaging requirements. The MTP technology, licensed from X-Celeprint Ltd of Cork, Ireland – a subsidiary of Tessenderlo-based XTRION N.V. – enables a broad degree of freedom for system and product designers by providing flexible integration of various material system chiplets into the product design.
“As the demand for integrated photonics rapidly increases, thanks to the growth of AI and data transfer, our joint solutions will enable much faster data rates while reducing overall power consumption, and therefore the environmental footprint,” says SMART Photonics’ CEO Johan Feenstra.
“Through heterogeneous integration, we are combining the best of the InP and silicon photonics worlds,” says X-FAB’s CEO Rudi De Winter. “This will allow our customers to develop innovative solutions addressing the societal challenges of our times such as decarbonization. It is also a great opportunity to build a strong European value chain.”
The collaboration builds upon the PhotonixFAB EU (European Union) funding project, which aims to provide a path to scalable high-volume manufacturing for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and silicon nitride (SiN) silicon photonics, MTP-ready InP chiplets and micro-transfer printing of chiplets.
X-FAB and SMART Photonics recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to formalize their collaboration. The aim is to support lead customers with industrial prototyping by 2026, with risk production readiness by 2027. Early customer engagements can be supported within the ongoing PhotonixFAB project framework.
EU-funded photonixFAB consortium now open for first prototyping
imec and SMART Photonics sign MoU to work on hybrid integration of InP on SiN/SiPh
X-FAB leads EU-funded photonixFAB project to industrialize European silicon photonics value chain
