Lightwave Logic, a technology platform company using their electro-optic (EO) polymers to transmit data faster with less power and smaller hardware, is collaborating with Advanced Micro Foundry (AMF), a silicon photonics volume foundry, to develop polymer slot modulators with AMF’s silicon photonics platform.
These modulators can reach a record low drive voltage under 1V and data rates of 200 Gbps PAM4. They will allow new 800 Gb/s and 1.6T Gb/s pluggable transceivers for the fast growing demand for optical connectivity for large AI computing clusters.
Lightwave Logic and AMF have worked together for a year to make the electro optic polymer slot modulators using AMF’s standard process flow on 200-mm wafers. This successful demonstration is a major achievement in integrated photonics, combining Silicon photonics with polymer materials. Both parties are working to improve the modulators to make them ready for product companies on a manufacturing scale.
Lightwave logic Chair and CEO Dr. Michael Lebby says, “AMF is a world class facility with mature and high-volume silicon photonics. With AMF, we not only moved to 200-mm wafers, but we also boosted silicon photonics with our polymer slot modulators to achieve world class performance. Engineers from both sides have done well to make a silicon photonics design that integrates well with polymer, a process that would have been harder with other next-generation modulator materials. This achievement puts our company in a strong position to increase volume for our polymers and 200-mm silicon wafers with AMF”.
And AMF CEO C.V. Jagadish says, “Lightwave Logic’s EO polymer modulators can support higher baud rates, low power consumption, and small size. These features, integrated with AMF Silicon Photonics platform, make them cost effective options for 800Gb/s and next-generation 1.6Tb/s pluggable transceivers applications. This demonstration opens up new opportunities to develop new solutions for EO polymer modulators integrated with AMF’s standard processes. We are eager to continue to explore the benefits of EO polymer modulation on our foundry processes, to provide innovative and manufacturable technology solutions for data communication.”
Singapore-based AMF is a silicon photonics foundry, specializing in manufacturing, prototyping, and testing. They have their own technology platforms, updated with in-house PDKs (process design kits) for applications in areas including telecoms, data centers, lidar, and sensors.
Lightwave Logic uses their own engineered electro-optic (EO) polymers to make a platform that can send data faster, use less power, and fit in a small space. The company’s organic polymers are highly active and stable, and help Lightwave Logic make new photonic EO devices that change data from electrical signals to optical signals.
DVN comment
AMF provides a solid-state lidar PDK—a promising approach to help lidar suppliers design accurate, compact, fast FMCW and ToF lidars. AMF’s lidar PDK is available in different SOI (silicon on insulator) structural versions. The cooperation with Lightwave could especially focus on production of lidar modules dedicated to light modulation and beamforming by silicon-organic optical phase arrays.
