News: Optoelectronics
26 March 2025
X-FAB, SMART Photonics and Epiphany Design demo InP-on-Si design flow for next-gen optical transceivers at OFC
Analog/mixed-signal and specialty foundry X-FAB Silicon Foundries SE of Tessenderlo, Belgium, independent pure-play indium phosphide (InP) integrated photonics foundry SMART Photonics of Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and Epiphany Design of Enschede, The Netherlands (a fabless photonic design house specialized in hybrid and heterogeneous photonics) are collaborating to develop a new heterogeneous photonics integration platform that combines the strengths of InP and silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technologies, enabling multi-terabit data rates for datacom and telecom applications.
Through the co-optimization of SOI, InP and micro-transfer-printing (MTP) technologies, the new platform aims to address customer requirements for high-speed data rates and energy efficiency in high-volume manufacturing of optical transceivers. It also enables new functionalities and improved system performance while reducing integration costs through relaxed photonics packaging requirements. Pioneered by X-Celeprint, MTP technology provides a broad degree of freedom for system and product designers by allowing flexible integration of chiplets into the product design.
The collaboration has made significant progress, resulting in the development of a design flow and process design kit (PDK) that enables the design of photonics circuits integrating InP chiplets on an SOI platform. This design flow is implemented in Luceda’s IPKISS electronic design automation (EDA) tool. Luceda’s technical expertise and support enabled the design of the demonstrator.
As part of this development, Epiphany Design – an X-FAB innovation and XCHAIN partner – has demonstrated the new heterogeneous InP-on-SOI design flow with an optical transceiver demonstrator. This collaboration is being showcased at the 50th Optical Fiber Communications Conference & Exposition (OFC 2025) in San Francisco, CA, USA (1–3 April), where X-FAB is in booth #4961, and Epiphany Design and SMART Photonics are in the NL Pavilion in booths #6065 and #6067, respectively.
“By bringing together the integration density of silicon with the high performance of InP actives, we enable new possibilities for disruptive innovation in telecom, datacom and beyond,” says Epiphany Design’s CEO Jörn Epping. “This approach empowers PIC [photonic integrated circuit] designers with greater flexibility and a clear path towards scalable, high-performance PIC-based solution.”
The collaboration builds on the PhotonixFAB EU funding project, which supports the development of industrial pilot lines for silicon photonics SOI, micro-transfer print ready InP chiplets and MTP of InP chiplets on SOI and SiN photonics wafers.
The complete design flow will be available for early access in first-quarter 2026. The goal is to support lead customers’ industrial prototyping by mid-2026, with production ramp-up readiness in 2027.
SMART Photonics and X-FAB collaborate on multi-Terabit transceivers
OpenLight and Epiphany partner on PIC design
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
