New launch OpenLight offers silicon photonics with integrated lasers

08 Jun 2022

Silicon Valley startup says its 400G and 800G reference designs with integrated lasers will be available this summer.

Addressing the growing silicon photonics market requirements for improved performance, power efficiency and reliability, OpenLight, a newly-launched company, has introduced what it calls “the world’s first open silicon photonics platform with integrated lasers.”

OpenLight's platform provides a new level of laser integration and scalability to accelerate the development of high-performance photonic integrated circuits in applications such as datacom, telecom, lidar, healthcare, HPC, AI, and optical computing.

The technology has passed qualification and reliability tests on Tower’s PH18DA production process. OpenLight expects the first open Multi-Project Wafer shuttle run on the PH18DA process as well as 400G and 800G reference designs with integrated lasers to be available in Summer 2022.

“We strongly believe that OpenLight's technology will transform the silicon photonics industry,” said Dr. Marco Racanelli, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Tower Semiconductor’s Analog Business Unit.

“Providing an open silicon photonics platform with integrated lasers that has been qualified on Tower's process will help mutual customers innovate and fuel the next generation of silicon photonics designs at scale. We are excited to partner with OpenLight in this journey.”

As the optics industry advances, a major challenge for silicon photonics has been laser integration and the high cost associated with adding discrete lasers, including the manufacturing, assembly, and alignment of those lasers. .

This becomes more important as the number of laser channels and the overall bandwidth increases. By processing the indium phosphide materials directly on 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 improve overall reliability and simplify packaging.

‘New generation of silicon photonics’

“OpenLight is paving the way for the new generation of silicon photonics by enabling the scalable integration of lasers in pluggable and co-packaged optics,” commented Aveek Sarkar, Vice President of Engineering at Synopsys. “The combination of Synopsys' unified electronic and photonic design solution and OpenLight's innovative silicon photonics platform will significantly accelerate the development of photonics ICs.”

OpenLight operates under the tagline “Open. Integrated. Scalable.” Its open platform includes integrated lasers, optical amplifiers, modulators, photodetectors, and other key photonic components to form a complete solution for low-power, high-performance photonics ICs. In addition, the firm offers select PIC designs and design services to accelerate time-to-market.

OpenLight's executive team is led by Dr. Thomas Mader, Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Daniel Sparacin, VP of Business Development and Strategy, and Dr. Volkan Kaman, VP of Engineering. “The rapidly growing silicon photonics market is being driven by the relentless demand for higher bandwidth needed to analyze, store and move complex data,” said Dr. Mader.

“OpenLight's open silicon photonics platform with integrated lasers enables scaling from one laser to hundreds, or even thousands of lasers per PIC, all monolithically integrated at the wafer level,” he added. “With our platform, companies can enter emerging markets faster, accelerate new applications and completely change the way their teams build photonic systems of tomorrow.”