Synopsys and Juniper Networks jointly invest in launch to chase silicon photonics

14 Apr 2022

As yet unnamed firm will provide first laser-on-chip open SiPh platform for comms, lidar, AI, and optical computing.

Synopsys and Juniper Networks have announced that they are to form a new, separate company to provide “an open silicon photonics platform to address the growing photonic requirements in communciations, lidar, healthcare, HPC, AI, and optical computing.”

The new company’s open silicon photonics platform will include integrated lasers, optical amplifiers, and a full suite of photonic components to form a complete solution that will be accessible through a Process Design Kit.

The partners say the platform “will enable a new level of integration at an unmatched price point, with the lowest power consumption for high-performance Photonic Integrated Circuits.” Tantalizingly, the name of the new company will be announced at a later date.

The terms of the agreement are not being disclosed at this time. The new company will be jointly owned by Synopsys and Juniper, with Synopsys as the majority owner. The new company’s results will be consolidated into Synopsys’ financials. While Synopsys expects the investment to be “slightly dilutive” to fiscal 2022 earnings, the investment is not material and will not affect Synopsys’ fiscal second quarter and full year 2022 guidance ranges provided on February 16, 2022. There is no change to Juniper’s full year financial outlook as a result of this transaction.

The new company is being formed, in part, from the carve-out of integrated silicon photonics assets from Juniper, which includes more than 200 patents on photonic device design and process integration.

While part of Juniper, the new company has closely collaborated with Tower Semiconductor to develop and qualify Tower’s “PH18DA” process technology to enable the industry’s first laser-on-a-chip open silicon photonics platform.

‘Sampling this summer’

To demonstrate capabilities of this platform and accelerate customer adoption of the technology, the new company has created 400G and 800G photonics reference designs with integrated lasers and expects first samples to be available in summer 2022.

“Silicon photonics is a rapidly growing market that is transforming many industries and creating exciting opportunities for new applications in the future,” said Sassine Ghazi, president and chief operating officer at Synopsys.

He added, “The new company's open silicon photonics platform, combined with Synopsys' existing investment in a unified electronic photonic design automation solution consisting of OptoCompiler™, OptSim™, PrimeSim™, Photonic Device Compiler and IC Validator™ products, will help reshape the optical computing industry, enabling companies to cost-effectively shift to integrated lasers and significantly accelerate development of photonic IC designs.

Rami Rahim, CEO of Juniper Networks, said, “This revolutionary technology will change the economics of how people are going to build photonic systems. We have been strong supporters of integrated silicon photonics and we believe the new company will drive development of these systems by using an advanced open platform that will dramatically reduce costs and increase the performance and reliability of designs across multiple use cases.”

A key challenge for silicon photonics has been the cost of adding discrete lasers, which includes the manufacturing as well as the assembly and alignment of those lasers onto the photonic chip. This becomes more important as the number of laser channels and the overall bandwidth increases.

By processing the indium phosphide (InP) materials directly onto 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 on silicon wafers improves overall reliability and simplifies packaging. This laser-on-a-chip open silicon photonics platform will bring integrated photonics to a host of new applications and markets that were previously not thought possible. The first Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) is scheduled to be taped out in Q2 2022.

“We have had a long history of successful collaboration with Juniper Networks on integrated photonics. The new company formed by Synopsys and Juniper will strengthen and accelerate the adoption of the silicon photonics platform,” said Russell Ellwanger, CEO of Tower Semiconductor. “Providing an open silicon photonics platform consisting of integrated lasers that has been qualified on Tower's process will enable customers to create innovative products with the potential to transform the industry.”