Scaling All Nitride Photonic Integrated Circuits for future markets

Project Information

SPECTRA

Grant agreement ID: 954530

DOI

10.3030/954530

Project closed

EC signature date 5 June 2020

Start date 1 September 2020

End date 31 January 2024

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 3 571 250,00

EU contribution

€ 2 499 875,00

Coordinated by

LIGENTEC SA
Switzerland

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SPECTRA (Scaling All Nitride Photonic Integrated Circuits for future markets)

Reporting period: 2021-12-01 to 2024-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The Sensing and Communication markets are predicted to increase tremendously over the next few years, especially pushed from medical instrumentation, diagnostics, autonomous driving, quantum computing and communication. Photonic Integration, the ability to shrink complex optical systems on a small chip, is one of the key technologies with an enabling and highly disruptive potential in those verticals.

LIGENTEC has developed a unique thick Silicon Nitride (SiN) technology which enables the manufacturing of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) at better performance and lower cost than common approaches. The technology has reached TRL 7 and gained a lot of customer traction in prototyping.

SPECTRA focuses on industrialising the manufacturing processes of LIGENTEC’s PICs and preparing for scale-up including a quality control line for production and certifying the technology to industry standards. It is strategic to the company as it enables LIGENTEC to enter the volume market.

The overall objectives of SPECTRA are to

- Make LIGENTEC’s PIC technology a world leading technology for quantum, sensing, communication, LiDAR and space markets, at industrial scale
- Setup and validate a quality control and metrology line for PIC fabrication at scale
- Have certified reference designs to industry standards allowing easier design for customers enabling new applications in new markets
- Be ready to enter volume market
- Have demonstrated increased production repeatability, yield and proven product reliability.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The main outcome of the SPECTRA project was to industrialise the LIGENTEC offering from the prototyping level to a production type level.This outcome has been achieved, more specifically:
- The complete transfer of LIGENTEC’s AN800 technology to volume fabrication partner X-FAB has been achieved
- LIGENTEC processes are now commercially available in the 200mm line of X-FAB France. This enabled LIGENTEC to serve customers who have development plans for PIC volume scaling
- We have built a quality control line at LIGENTEC France, composed of a fully automatic wafer level probing and DC electro-optical wafer level testing in ISO 4 clean room space
- LIGENTEC’s Process Design Kit (PDK) was updated to version 8.6
- LIGENTEC achieved ISO 9001:2015 certification
- We attended important conferences/workshops/exhibitions (e.g. PIC international, CLEO, ECOC, SPIE Photonics West, OFC, etc.)

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

LIGENTEC PICs are now commercially available out of a high volume fab located in Europe, a key requisite enabling the secure and independent supply of the quantities foreseen, in relation to sensors for self-driving cars, environment monitoring, quantum computers and an array of other applications.

In this way, LIGENTEC has created the biggest European based PIC fabrication line with open access to other European SMEs, start-ups and large corporations. This is the first step towards an European sovereignty of volume supply of low loss photonic integrated circuits.

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