The Generic Foundry Model in Europe - JePPIX

The Generic Foundry Model in Europe 

Prof. Michael J. Wale 

Director Active Products Research, Oclaro Technology Ltd., Caswell, UK 

ECOC Workshop on Low-Cost Open Access to Photonic Integration 

Technology, Amsterdam, 16 th September 2012 

1 © 2012 Oclaro Inc.

Agenda 

• Motivation 

• Generic Platform Concepts and Methodology 

• Current platform developments in Europe 

– InP (JePPIX) 

– Silicon Photonics (ePIXfab) 

– Dielectric planar lightwave circuits (TriPleX) 

• Conclusions 

2 © 2012 Oclaro Inc. 

2

Photonic Integration: Motivation 

• Greatly reduced component cost 

• Monolithic interconnection of device elements 

• Simpler packaging and assembly, standard processes 

• High reliability 

• Less interfaces 

• High functionality 

• Many more functional elements per chip, higher creativity in design 

• High phase stability, excellent device matching 

• Permits interferometric structures 

• Robust 

• Single chip designs with minimal optical interfaces are ideal for demanding 

environments 

• Better power efficiency 

• Minimize optical power loss at interfaces between device elements 

PIC Technologies have high value 


Photonic Integration in Oclaro 

• Photonic integration is central to Oclaro’s 

business 

• Highly flexible active-passive integration 

scheme based on selective area epitaxy 

on InP 

– Butt-joins between active and passive 

sections 

• Multiple stages of epitaxy using MOVPE 

– 3-6 growth stages 

– High yields 

• Fabrication at Caswell, UK 

– Major investment in equipment, facilities 

and R&D 

– 3” processing, stepper and e-beam 

lithography, extensive automation 

• Builds on work done over >20 years with 

significant support of EC 

Example: Monolithic 

Laser + Modulator chip 

for Tunable XFP module 

• ~1000 chips per wafer 

• Batch processed 

• 3” InP wafers 

• On-wafer tested 

• Scalable 


Economics of Integration 

• Range of applications for integrated photonics is extremely wide 

• Many applications can only be addressed using photonic integration 

– Cost, performance, stability 

• PIC real-estate is potentially cheap 

– Even with complex functionality, ~ 1000 die sites on 3” InP wafer 

– Automated fabs with high level of process control provide good yields 

• Cost of entry is very high: photonic integration is available only to a very 

few companies today (fab, design costs, …) 

• Need to increase market size and reduce the cost of entry for new 

applications for the industry to flourish 

– PICs can be a major enabler for new markets 

– Increased return on investment for next-generation wafer fabs 

• An alternative approach: 

– “Generic” foundry approach for arbitrary applications on a common, 

qualified process base 

– Design systems that allow user-specified designs to be right first time 

– Very like ASICs in silicon microelectronics 


The ePIXnet proposition 


The ePIXnet vision 

• Convergence of technologies 

• develop a limited number of generic wafer-scale integration 

technologies that can support a broad range of applications 

• Convergence of design approaches 

• decouple design (IP) from technology (IP) 

• set up libraries 

• standardize interfaces of design tools 

• Training 

• organize training and design support for researchers and SMEs, in 

particular fabless companies 

• Find the ePIXnet vision paper at www.epixnet.org 


Generic Integration Philosophy 

Electronic integration 

3 basic building blocks 

Photonic integration 

4 basic building blocks 

PWD 

Waveguide 

PHM 

ϕ 

Phase 

SOA 

Α 

Amplitude 

P 

Polarization 


Building with basic functional blocks 

Passive Phase Amplitude 

Polarisation 

waveguide 

phase modulator 

optical amplifier 

polarisation converter 

curve 

amplitude modulator 

λ converter, ultrafast switch 

pol. splitter / combiner 

MMI-coupler 

2x2 switch 

picosecond pulse laser 

pol. indep. 2x2 switch 

AWG-demux 

WDM OXC 

multiwavelength laser 

pol. indep. diff. delay line 


Generic Foundry Platform Model 

• Generic design and manufacturing platforms are based on standard process flows 

and structures 

• The foundry can 

accordingly turn wafers in 

high volume on stable 

processes, supporting 

many different designs 

• We can establish a 

separation of function 

between specification, 

design and fab 

• We can develop dedicated 

software tools and a 

component library for 

rapid and accurate chip 

design 

• This model is used to great effect in microelectronics, but until now has never been 

applied in photonics 


Generic PIC Foundry - Potential Impact 

• Photonic ICs come within reach for a much wider range 

of users and applications 

• Design capability and design productivity greatly 

increased 

– Move from photonic device development to photonic 

circuit design 

– New skills, new industries in PIC design will emerge 

• High manufacturing volumes on standard processes 

• Designs that pass design rule checks are automatically 

qualified for reliability, so eliminating an expensive and 

time-consuming part of product development 

• PIC development and manufacturing cost is no longer 

the bottle neck 


Chip cost trends in different fab models 

Entry costs 

Cleanroom 

Process 

Design 

1B 

1M 

Chip cost / mm 2 

Vertical Custom Generic 

1995 2005 2015 

1k 

Values are indicative only 

1 

1 10 100 1k 10k 100k 1M 10M 

1 10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000 10,000,000 

Chip volume (mm 2 ) 


Generic technology landscape in Europe 

TripleX 

2005 

ePIXfab 

ePIX net 

2007 

JePPIX 

STW 

GTIP 

EuroPIC 

Network 

Platform 

IoP 

PD 

Memphis 

Paradigm 

EU Project 

NL Project 


JePPIX: The European InP PIC Platform 

• JePPIX is the Joint European 

Platform for Photonic Integration of 

InP-based Components and Circuits 

• Provides a framework for research, 

development, dissemination and 

exploitation of generic InP PIC 

technology 

• Supports design-rule, library-based 

generic platforms for InP PICs 

• Current and recent projects: 

EuroPIC, PARADIGM (FP7), 

MEMPHIS (NL) 

• Contact: Coordinator@JePPIX.eu 

• Download the JePPIX roadmap at 

www.JePPIX.eu 


InP Application-Specific PICs from the EuroPIC project 

WDM receiver for FTTH Filtered Feedback MW laser hybrid TDM-WDM transmitters FBG-readout 

(user Genexis, fab HHI) (user ASTRON, fab Oclaro) (user Genexis, fab Oclaro) (user Fibresensing, fab HHI) 

Fast optical switch matrix Pulse serialiser Pulse regenerator Pulse shaper 

(user UCamb, fab Oclaro) for KM3NeT neutrino detector (user U Pisa, fab COBRA) for bio-imaging 

(user NIKHEF, fab Oclaro) 

(user UTwente, fab Oclaro) 

non-telecom 


Silicon Photonics: ePIXfab 

Objective: Establish access to silicon photonics technology 

for small scale users and support emergence of a fab-less 

ecosystem 

• IC technology (Multi Project Wafers) 

• Packaging & Integration 

• Training & Support 

ePIXfab is a collaboration between research institutes, coordinated by IMEC 

2006 2011 

Supported by the EU (FP6, FP7) 


ePIXfab achievements 

Industry 

Research Institute 

University 


Elements realized in the ePIXfab process at IMEC 

High confinement 

waveguide, 450nm width x 

220nm height 

Ring resonator 

Waveguide 

crossing 

Spiral waveguide 

AWG multiplexer with channel spacing 200GHz, size 250µmx200µm 


TriPleX Platform 


TriPleX Platform - MPW 

http://www.lionixbv.nl/ 


A message from a pioneer in silicon VLSI 

“When new design methods are 

introduced in any technology, especially in 

a new technology, a large-scale 

exploratory application of the methods by 

many designers is necessary in order to 

test and validate the methods … 

A lot of usage is necessary to enable 

sufficient viewpoint shifts and social 

organization shifts to occur to effect the 

cultural integration of the methods.” 

Lynn Conway, coauthor ‘Introduction to 

VLSI systems’ (1979), from PARC report 

‘The MPC Adventures” (1981) 

European platform projects are starting this process for PICs 


Conclusions 

• Photonic integration is a breakthrough technology 

• Need to increase market size and reduce the cost of entry for 

new applications for the industry to flourish 

– PICs can be a major enabler for new markets 

– Increased return on investment for next-generation wafer fabs 

• Generic foundry approach looks promising 

– Establish generic methodology, standard platforms, design tools, packaging 

approaches ... 

– Potential for dramatic reduction of entry costs for new applications 

– There are uncertainties but also major creative opportunities – just as in 

VLSI 

• The European Photonics Community is taking important steps 

towards the validation of the generic foundry model in PIC R&D 

and Manufacturing 

• The dominant model in 5-10 years? 


Acknowledgments 

• The author would to thank the many people who have contributed 

to the development of Generic PIC platforms in Europe 

• This work has been supported in part by the European 

Commission through the ePIXnet, EuroPIC, PARADIGM, 

PhotonFab, ESSenTIAL and HELIOS projects and by the Dutch 

SmartMix MEMPHIS project 


Mike.Wale@oclaro.com 

Thank You!

The Generic Foundry Model in Europe - JePPIX

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