Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PHORMIC (Wafer-scale platform for Photonic Programmable Multipurpose Integrated Circuits)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-10-01 al 2023-09-30
PHORMIC is building a European platform for next-generation programmable photonic chips with a low adoption threshold for product developers in diverse application domains. The PHORMIC platform consists of three tiers, enabling photonics developers at different levels of abstraction.
The first tier is a photonic chip platform, based on 200 mm wafer-scale silicon photonics augmented with transfer-printed III-V optical amplifiers and compact low-power MEMS actuators. The devices are encapsulated in wafer-scale hermetically sealed cavities that will also be used for on-chip gas cells that act as an absolute calibration reference for the on-chip widely tunable lasers. The combination of high-speed silicon photonics, broadband optical gain and low-power MEMS tuners is a true enabler for new applications. The process flow is supported by a design kit for building complex photonic circuits.
The second tier supplements the photonic chips with modular packaging processes and driver electronics (including high-speed drivers), and the packaging and connectivity logic are integrated in the design kit. This provides a low-threshold entry point for building complex photonic chip-based systems with active control and programmability.
The third tier creates a multipurpose programmable photonic processor, which can control the flow of light in an analogue way through a software interface. This chip, together with its electronics and programming framework, forms a true “photonics development kit”. This enables an off-the-shelf use model like that of electronic FPGAs, reducing prototyping time for new concepts from more than a year to weeks.
The PHORMIC consortium has all expertise to establish a full supply chain, including a migration path to a European industrial 200 mm foundry. The application potential of the three tiers of the platform is validated through three demonstrators, in datacenter communication, sensing and mm-wave wireless beamforming. For each case, a custom-designed chip will be compared to the multipurpose photonic processor.
The first tier is a photonic chip platform, based on 200 mm wafer-scale silicon photonics augmented with transfer-printed III-V optical amplifiers and compact low-power MEMS actuators. The devices are encapsulated in wafer-scale hermetically sealed cavities that will also be used for on-chip gas cells that act as an absolute calibration reference for the on-chip widely tunable lasers. The combination of high-speed silicon photonics, broadband optical gain and low-power MEMS tuners is a true enabler for new applications. The process flow is supported by a design kit for building complex photonic circuits.
The second tier supplements the photonic chips with modular packaging processes and driver electronics (including high-speed drivers), and the packaging and connectivity logic are integrated in the design kit. This provides a low-threshold entry point for building complex photonic chip-based systems with active control and programmability.
The third tier creates a multipurpose programmable photonic processor, which can control the flow of light in an analogue way through a software interface. This chip, together with its electronics and programming framework, forms a true “photonics development kit”. This enables an off-the-shelf use model like that of electronic FPGAs, reducing prototyping time for new concepts from more than a year to weeks.
The PHORMIC consortium has all expertise to establish a full supply chain, including a migration path to a European industrial 200 mm foundry. The application potential of the three tiers of the platform is validated through three demonstrators, in datacenter communication, sensing and mm-wave wireless beamforming. For each case, a custom-designed chip will be compared to the multipurpose photonic processor.
In the first year of the project, PHORMIC has made important progress on all levels of the technology platform. As a vertically integrated project, it is important that new process developments take into account the requirements of the building blocks, circuits, packages, electronics and the final demonstration systems that we want to build.
A complete process flow for the integration of transfer printed III-V amplifiers and free-standing, hermetically sealed MEMS was elaborated, building on the experience from earlier projects such as MORPHIC and MICROPRINCE. Based on the new process flow, device designs were (re)optimized and embedded in a process design kit that could be used by circuit designers to build test circuits for the future demonstrators. This culminated in a tape-out of a chip design with >100 experiments uniquely enabled by this new technology platform, including a multi-purpose programmable waveguide mesh.
A complete process flow for the integration of transfer printed III-V amplifiers and free-standing, hermetically sealed MEMS was elaborated, building on the experience from earlier projects such as MORPHIC and MICROPRINCE. Based on the new process flow, device designs were (re)optimized and embedded in a process design kit that could be used by circuit designers to build test circuits for the future demonstrators. This culminated in a tape-out of a chip design with >100 experiments uniquely enabled by this new technology platform, including a multi-purpose programmable waveguide mesh.
While it is too early to show demonstrations of the fully integrated platform, the individual modules, and in particular the silicon photonic MEMS, and the transfer-printed III-V laser circuits, are recognized as world-leading achievements, showing the capabilities and potential of the PHORMIC technology. Examples include widely tunable lasers integrated in IMEC’s iSiPP50G silicon photonics platform, and MEMS tunable couplers, switches and phase shifters.