X-FAB announces SMART photonics collaboration at electronica 2024

This collaboration will see X-FAB’s silicon photonics platform integrate with SMART Photonics’ Indium Phosphite (InP) chiplets using micro-transfer printing (MTP) for heterogeneous integration.

To learn more about this collaboration, Electronic Specifier’s Harry Fowle spoke with Rudi De Winter, CEO of X-FAB, on what this collaboration means for the future.

The next step

X-FAB aren’t new to the world of photonics, as De Winter says, “We started within photonics around six or seven years ago now on a more customer specific basis, since then we’ve only been growing within photonics.”

And growing they have been, X-FAB is now one of the most recognised and reliable names when it comes to silicon photonics being a specialist with its own platform. Yet, whilst silicon is strong in many ways, it has its limitations – and this trend is no different in the photonics industry.

“Silicon is okay, of course it is, but it is not the most optimal solution for photonics,” explains De Winter. “This is why we are collaborating with SMART Photonics, who specialise in InP integrated photonics. It is this combination of our specialised knowledge of silicon, and SMART Photonics specialised knowledge of InP that we believe will produce stronger results.”

Stronger data/telecom applications

“The ultimate objective here is to make superior data and telecom applications for customers,” says De Winter – and so far so good. “By utilising this new collaborative approach, we have been able to achieve faster modulation, improved integration, with lower losses. Lower losses also means less energy.”

The benefit of opting for InP technology is that it can support modulator bandwidths exceeding 120GHz, perfect for the next-generation of multi-terabit telecom and datacom standards. For reference, leading silicon photonics technologies have been found to hit a ceiling of 70GHz. InP technology alongside silicon offers a scalable, high-volume solution that combines the best of both worlds.

The collaboration aims to optimise silicon photonics, InP, and MTP technologies to meet customer requirements, introducing enhanced functionality and system performance. By easing photonics packaging demands, it also helps to reduce integration costs. Licensed from X-Celeprint, the MTP technology offers system and product designers significant flexibility, allowing diverse material system chiplets to be seamlessly integrated into product designs.

Getting to market

Within photonics, getting to market, especially at the cutting edge is no easy task. Yet, if the demand is there, then the research to get to that point will be done. “When it comes to a timeframe, it can be quite long… We started this sort of project almost 3 years ago with LIGENTEC, now we are finally reaching the first product development stage.”

Looking ahead, the aim is to give lead customers industrial prototyping come 2026, and then achieve risk production readiness by 2027. For early customers, X-FAB offers support from its ongoing PhotonixFAB project framework.