ROY RUBENSTEIN US INNOVATION
available to all Making integrated optics
relatively new and certain aspects have not been developed that much,” says Coolbaugh. Another issue is developing skilled engineers and technicians able to design and manufacture integrated photonics circuits. Whereas electronic chip designers typically have a first degree, photonics engineers tend to have a doctorate because of the deep understanding needed. “This is one of the things we find we are lacking significantly,” says Coolbaugh. “There are just not enough skilled people in the industry to fulfil these needs.” AIM is also working with universities and companies to develop technology and IP alongside the manufacturing centres. Four research areas have been chosen, covering datacom, analogue RF for telecom winvolving Infinera, sensors and phased arrays. These are areas where AIM sees products emerging in volume in the next five years. Each year AIM will review and add new research topics. “There are new ideas, new materials and new manufacturing processes that will be developed,” says Coolbaugh. He cites the use of silicon photonics to drive robots as an emerging application area. STATUS AIM expects the entire manufacturing infrastructure to be in place in a year or so. “And we will have the design kit, silicon photonics, and test, assembly and packaging all done and ready to go by the end of 2018,” says Coolbaugh. The design kit is available now but it is an early version that continues to evolve. AIM is looking to develop new ways of fast-testing photonics on wafers, while there will be the high-speed testing of circuits at Rochester. “What we design has got to work in the fab, the fab has got to test well and then what we package has to be consistent with what we deliver to the packaging house,” says Coolbaugh. “The entire flow has to integrate exactly.” A start-up or small company wanting to make a product can already use the design kit and benefit from AIM’s multi- project wafer service. Then there will be the Rochester packaging and prototyping site. Low volumes can be made at the Albany fab while AIM will pass higher- volume manufacturing requests to leading chip fabrication players such as GlobalFoundries. Companies can take a concept, develop their own product and have their own business. “We provide the entire chain for the infrastructure,” says Coolbaugh. “Right now, this is only available to large companies.” If all goes to plan, what impact will AIM have on integrated optics and silicon photonics in particular? “It will be a worldwide impact,” says Coolbaugh. “Just because we want to create the infrastructure in the US doesn’t mean we are limiting our customers to the US.”
A US initiative is bringing together its top photonics academics and universities with leading industry players to create a manufacturing infrastructure for the widespread adoption of integrated photonics.
ROY RUBENSTEIN T he US sees integrated photonics as a strategic technology and has set up The American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics - AIM Photonics - to advance the technology and make it available to a wider community of companies. AIM Photonics, with $610 million of public and private funding, is a five-year initiative ending in late 2020. The goal is that AIM will be self-sustaining by then. “AIM is not only creating the manufacturing infrastructure for integrated photonics but also ideas and intellectual property that can be used by companies for new products,” says Doug Coolbaugh, chief operations o cer at AIM Photonics. Technologies start at universities and in the labs of companies with significant R&D budgets. IBM and Intel, for example, have been developing silicon photonics for over a decade and the technology is ready for deployment. However, the IP developed remains with these companies. AIM is addressing all the elements needed so that small to medium businesses and entrepreneurial ventures can use integrated photonics for their products, companies
too small to develop the technology themselves. “That will accelerate the silicon photonics ecosystem and allow new products to come out much faster than it would normally take,” says Coolbaugh. INITIATIVES AIM is making available a chip fabrication plant as a first step to bridging the gap between research and manufacturing. SUNY Polytechnic Institute has been working with MIT for the last six years to develop a 300mm-wafer silicon photonics line at its Albany site. The fab o ers a multi-project wafer service whereby several designs can be made on one wafer, allowing the cost to be shared. A design kit is also being developed, a critical part according to Coolbaugh. The design kit features key building blocks needed to make an integrated photonics circuit. AIM is working with leading semiconductor industry design automation companies Cadence, Synopsys and Mentor Graphics to provide the software tool environment for designers to develop circuits. “This design environment is compatible with the silicon photonics process here in our fab,” says Coolbaugh. A packaging and prototyping facility located in Rochester, New York is also being set up. “Photonics packaging is
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| ISSUE 7 | Q3 2016
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