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Silicon Photonics:
Big Investments, Small Business
© 2012

© 2012 • 2
Report Content
• Table of Content … 3
• Companies listed in the report … 5
• What’s inside the report, what’s not … 6
• Executive Summary … 7
– The (few) key facts to remember about silicon photonics … 8
– Silicon photonics definition … 11
– Silicon photonics market … 12
– Silicon photonics advantages … 13
– Silicon photonics time-to-market … 14
– Inflection points for silicon photonics … 15
– Silicon photonics devices … 16
– Silicon photonics application revenues … 17
– Silicon photonics dies market forecast … 18
– Silicon photonics wafer forecast … 19
– Why silicon photonics only in AOCs today … 20
– Technical challenges … 21
• Introduction … 22
– Silicon photonics definition … 23
– Focus on III-V integrated photonics … 27
– Focus on silicon photonics … 36
• Industry driving forces … 43
– Roadmaps … 44
– Datacom protocols roadmap … 50
• Applications … 56
– Applications summary … 57
– Telecom … 66
– Datacom … 71
– HPC & Data Centers … 75
– Consumer … 89
– Others (Military/Aerospace/Medical) … 92
• Market forecast … 97
– Silicon photonics TAM … 98
– Optical components market forecast … 99
– Silicon photonics applications revenues 2010-2017 … 102
– Silicon photonics 2012 revenues by application … 103
– Silicon photonics 2017 revenues by application … 104
– Active vs. passive silicon photonics revenues 2010-2017 … 105
– Silicon photonics products breakdown … 108
– Silicon photonics dies market forecast … 111
– Silicon photonics wafer forecast … 112
– Estimated 2011 market share … 113
• Silicon photonics players … 114
– Evolution of the business model … 115
– Silicon photonics foundries … 118
• Financial analysis … 121
– Raised funds by company … 123
– Relative investment efficiency … 125
• The different manufacturing approaches … 126
– Photonic in standard CMOS … 127
– Laser sources vs. VCSELs … 133
– The different approaches to Si photonics integration … 135
– The different bonding technologies … 142
– Design & packaging issues … 149
– A new approach: 2.5 and 3D … 152
• The integrated photonics « building blocks » … 157
– Summary … 158
– Light sources … 163
– Modulators … 168
– Detectors … 173
– Mux/Demux … 176
– Couplers … 178
– Passive devices … 181
– Others … 181
• Conclusions … 183
• 20+ Company Profiles … 186
• Appendix … 212
• Yole Développement presentation … 213

What is inside this report, what is not
• In this report, Yole is investigating primarily active silicon photonic devices:
– Lasers, detectors, VOAs, optical switches other active elements that have an electrical or electronic control of
the optics. Active devices and elements generate light, detect light or actively change the direction, intensity,
color or polarization of light signals.
• Not included are passive devices that may be based on silicon and glass.
– These include silica-on-silicon, Silicon dioxide (SiO2) or other technologies.
– Examples of these devices are Array Wave Guides (AWGs), optical filters, couplers, splitters, polarizers, taps,
combiners, optical connectors, Planar Light Circuits (PLC) etc.
– Most of these devices are simply coatings on glass or silicon and are passive devices that have been built for
many years.
• Passive Silicon photonics - However, these devices mentioned can be built using silicon photonics
fabrication technologies and sold as individual devices.
– We include these in “passive silicon photonics” and in active silicon photonics as elements when integrated.
• Not included: Solar cells, silicon photo detectors, sensors (fiber or temperature, pressure, audio, etc.),
coated glass windows, general optics, lenses, mirrors, etc..
• Main focus is on Si photonics but we also describe integrated photonics trends.
Passive Glass-based Devices
Active Silicon Photonic Devices
2 Input x32 Output Passive Optical Splitter
Bragg Grating Filter
Ring Resonator Optical Switch
Fujitsu Si Photonics Optical Switch
Chaoqian
© 2012 • 3

Si photonics, CMOS photonics, III-V integrated photonics comparison
Si photonics CMOS photonics Hybrid photonics III-V photonics
Substrate • SOI • SOI • SOI • InP, GaAs
Technology • Few transistors
(current/voltage driver)
and NOT complex CMOS
& digital logic
Laser
source
integration
2012 R&D
status
• Lasers are either die
bonded/flip-chipped (2012)
• Developments to built
lasers into Si (major
research effort today)
Pros • Very high integration
• Low cost
• Wafer level
Cons • Issues with laser sources
• Heat management issues
• Monolithic CMOS to build
transistors and digital logic
combined with silicon
photonics elements to build
optical subcomponents –
both on the same chip and
SOI substrate
• Possible monolithic
integartion (log term)
• Still basic R&D (except
Luxtera).
• Large number of transistors
• High integration
• Wafer level testing
• Potential low cost
• Technology nodes for
photonics and electronics
are different
• Heat management issue
(from the electronics)
• Both Si and III-V material
are processed on SOI
wafers
• Usually Ge is deposited
for detection
• III-V material is used for
laser effect. e.g. InP
bonded to a wafer/chip
• Close to final R&D stage • Mature
• Market will be mainly for
DWDM telecom
• Very complex material
systems, low integration,
low efficiency, high cost
• Fully monolithically
integrated process using
photonics foundry and III-
V materials usually InP or
GaAs
• Monolithic integartion
• Very efficient for light
generation and detection,
high integration, mature
technology, existing
markets
• Very high cost, limited
upwards integration
capabilities, no CMOS
compatible processes
possible (yet)
• InP is very expensive and
wafers are tiny 1”-3”
compared to silicon at
8,12-inch and soon 18-
inches
© 2012 • 4

The potential advantages for Si photonics are:
• Low power consumption
• High integration
• High reliability
Silicon photonics
Potential advantages
Low
environmental
footprint
Low operating
costs
Low power
Consumption
Low heating of
components
Possibility to
integrate more
optical
functionalities in
a single
component
Low
manufacturing
cost
High
Integration
Source Caliopia
High
Reliability
Low error rate
Higher density of
interconnects
Good spectral
efficiency
© 2012 • 5

Silicon photonics devices
The different devices addressed by Silicon photonics are:
• Individual Components and sub-components
– Optical components – a single function silicon photonics device:
• VOA, Multiplexer/demultiplexer, Active filters, Optical switches,
• Sensor element
– Optical engines – optics and electronics combined into an opto-electronic subassembly “engine”.
Packaged with other components and an aluminum shell to create a transceiver, transmitter, sensor
subsystem, etc..
• Transceiver-type Products
– Embedded modules (EMs) – transceivers or transmitters, and receivers designed for use inside a systems
and mounted on a PCB.
– Transceivers, transmitters, and receivers –devices designed to be plugged into a system front panel
connector slot; usually on a system external front panel.
– Active optical cables (AOCs) – a set of optical fibers with transceivers integrated on both ends to form a
single, pluggable cable that contains the optics inside and presents only an electrical connection outside.
• Future Products
– Hybrid packaged devices and 3DICs – Co-packaged silicon photonics with an ASIC either side-by-side or
3DIC bonded
– Integrated opto-electronic chips – a single device with electronics and optics integrated on the same chip
– It is important to note that passive optical elements (such as array wave guides, optical filters, couplers, splitters, polarizer
arrays) can be created with silicon photonics technologies and integrated with active elements.
© 2012 • 6

Silicon photonics market
• Silicon photonics has tremendous potential as a new technology to blend optical technology
with low cost CMOS semiconductor processing.
• But there are still many challenges ahead.
• The main problems in Silicon photonics development are:
1. Few products - most of the industry has been focused on developing individual silicon photonics
elements and cores. Few companies have developed integrated product solutions.
2. High cost – devices have been expensive to develop;
1. Silicon photonics companies have had to create their own CAE/CAD programs
2. Only in 2011, did open market CAE/CAD programs become available. Suppliers are very few in number
3. Several efforts have been established to promote CAE/CAD design tools. See OpSIS and LETI-Mentor
3. Technical miss-matches - with high volume markets
• Data centers want 850-nm and 1310-nm
• Consumers want very inexpensive products, but silicon photonics is still expensive
4. Competition with VCSEL-based alternatives
• VCSEL-based interconnects dominate both the data center and consumer areas with very low prices.
5. Need for high volumes - Manufacturing CMOS semiconductors is like the printing business where the
design costs are amortized over high volumes. The key to low costs are high volumes. Silicon Photonics
has not been able to achieve high enough volumes due to a number of constraints that impact costs.
• Most research so far has been in developing high-speed individual elements and cores
– Modulators, VOAs, switches, laser arrays, detector arrays, etc.
– Most of the core optical control elements have been developed
– Now about its about low power consumption, transmission characteristics and high data rates
– Not much development has gone into integrated “products” (except for a few startups)
© 2012 • 7

Business Models
Si photonics
activity (2012)
OpSIS foundry services uses BAE & IME foundries
JePPIX foundry uses Oclaro & FhG HHI foundries (InP)
ePIXfab uses IMEC & LETI foundries
Product
manufacturing
(> 100,000
chips)
Product
manufacturing
(< 100,000
chips)
R&D/
development
stage
R&D/MPW
Fabless
Foundries
Business model
Devices
Systems
© 2012 • 8

Si Photonic Applications TAM
Est. Total Available Market (Munits)
>100M
Board-toboard/
Chip-tochip
10M
1M
Consumer
Telecom
100k
High Perf
Computing
Data
Centres
Medical

Si Photonic Market Forecasts
$240
Silicon Photonics Market (US$M)
$200
$160
$120
$80
$40
$-
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
© 2012 • 10

© 2012 • 11
Slides extracted from report

© 2012 • 12
Slides extracted from report

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© 2012 • 13

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Market research,
Technology & Strategy
www.yole.fr
© 2012 • 14