EuroPIC interview
Q A
Explain the motivation for creating a European foundry for InP photonic integrated circuits?
MS:What we’re trying to do is introduce into InP- based photonics a similar foundry model to that which is so successful in CMOS microelectronics.
I think it’s good to distinguish between what we call custom foundries and generic foundries. A lot of fabs that call themselves foundries offer to develop a process for you, but with generic foundries, the process is standardized. That’s new and it makes access to this PIC technology much easier and cheaper.
There are two institutes that already offer that kind of foundry service on a research basis: ePIXfab for silicon photonics; and JePPIX (Joint European Platform for InP- based Photonic Integrated Components and Circuits) for InP. What we are talking about here is transferring the JePPIX approach into industry. Hopefully a European PIC foundry will exist in 2013.
Q A
The millions and millions of dollars poured into PIC technology have not provided a great return
on investment. How will the European manufacturing platform for photonic integrated circuits (EuroPIC) change that?
DR: Actually, the technology in these types of photonic integrated circuits is having quite a lot of commercial success. But this is only in the telecoms arena, where there is enough money and drive to deliver the integration needed to make those systems work.
One issue is that by and large the equipment suppliers in the telecoms, which are very dedicated in their own narrow commercial structures, don’t give access to their fabs. However, even if they did, the cost of development of the chips for someone else would be pretty horrendous. Even custom fabs, which operate at a lower cost level, are pretty expensive.
If we can develop along generic lines, PICs can become much cheaper - maybe one or two orders of magnitude cheaper. From there we can start to grow the market volumes in other sectors.
MS: Another important point is that once you have the platform technology and a lot of companies are using it, it will be worth the effort of creating a dedicated design kit and component library. Once you have that, you will design to accurate models, speeding up the whole design process and making it more accurate. That’s what has happened in microelectronics. Photonics technology is much too fragmented, with design software at a very basic level compared to the electronics industry.
Q A
Once the foundry is up and running, who will be its main users?
MS: They will be University spin-offs and SMEs that want to investigate the application of PICs in novel or improved products, and also larger companies that can develop their PICs at significantly lower costs. We have a list of fifty companies, our user group, with potential interest in this generic approach. The target is to increase that to at least one hundred within two years.
DR: The strength of the EuroPIC approach is that companies can get a handful of chips relatively cheaply and quickly. If they end up wanting many wafers a year, the same plants can produce that volume as well, because all processes are carried out using industrial facilities capable of high-volume production.
Q A
Why will SMEs have a better chance of success by working with EuroPIC?
DR: Any fabs would find it extremely difficult to work with large numbers of SMEs. You really need some kind of independent expertise in between the fabs and the applications: people to organize the whole process; people to do the design. The companies with the fabs do not have the manpower available. However, it is true that if a company was ramping its production to high volumes, it would be worth its while to talk directly with a fab, but we are talking about the companies starting in low volume. The photonics industry has thinned down a lot since the
dot.com boom-and-bust at the turn of the century, and very few of the big players who are left have the spare capacity to take on this work.
Q A
Q A
Will the EuroPIC foundries help companies to speed products to market?
DR: Yes. You can imagine a small SME with half a dozen people trying to sort everything out for themselves and struggling to get anywhere. When you have this infrastructure available, rapid prototyping becomes a reality. You will be able to go from an idea to having a chip in your hands in a few months. It will be incredibly different to the position we have now.
Do you think that Europe lags the US and Asia, in terms of PIC development and
commercialization?
MS: Europe had the lead in photonic integration in the 1990s. However, after the turn of the century US
companies, such as Infinera, came up very rapidly. However, in this novel approach - the generic technology - Europe has a lead. Something like this is not happening in the US or Japan. To succeed you need two things: a
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