search.noResults

search.searching

note.createNoteMessage

search.noResults

search.searching

orderForm.title

orderForm.productCode
orderForm.description
orderForm.quantity
orderForm.itemPrice
orderForm.price
orderForm.totalPrice
orderForm.deliveryDetails.billingAddress
orderForm.deliveryDetails.deliveryAddress
orderForm.noItems
MERRY CHRISTMAS


noxtherobot.com


Dr Eric Mounier, cofounder of market research firm Yole Développement, gives predictions for the silicon photonics market


With Big Data getting bigger by the second, transporting this level of data with existing technologies will soon reach its limit in terms of power consumption, density, and weight. It is now clear that photons will continue replacing electrons throughout networks, including in the data centre, the rack, and very soon on the board. The question is: how to achieve this at low cost? The answer is quite simple: market volume in million units will allow a scale factor that will drive the cost down. This is the quite simple equation that silicon photonics, fundamentally a semiconductor-based process, must solve.


Silicon photonics has been under


development for years, but there are still only a few products on the market. However, now that this technology is being pushed hard by large web companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft, we believe we have reached the tipping point that precedes massive growth.


“In semiconductors, silicon accounts for 80 per cent of the cost, while packaging is 20 per cent. In optics, it is the opposite, as packaging can be as high as 80 per cent of the final cost”


Back in 2000, Bookham was the first to commercialise silicon photonics components (AWG, transceivers). Then in 2006, VOA was commercialised by Kotura. Today, we see new startups and more and more products reaching the market, mostly for 100G but soon for 400G. There are also very encouraging signs in terms of growing investments from the VC community.


Silicon photonics is a mix of several


technical blocks (optical, but also IC for processing, MEMS for packaging, copper pillars, etc.), and involves several core components: laser source, modulator, optical waveguides, multiplexers/demultiplexers and photo detectors. The laser source integration is still a major cost factor today. As silicon cannot have a laser effect because of its indirect bandgap, the laser cannot be monolithically built on the silicon die, so there


www.electrooptics.com | @electrooptics lasercomponents.co.uk


are different solutions for laser integration. After years of R&D, Intel succeeded in doing wafer-level integration of the laser by bonding an InP chip then doing post-processing (alignment is not so crucial as it will be performed by lithography). The second solution is to flip-chip the laser source, but it is a complex process due to low throughput and high alignment accuracy. Packaging is another drawback. As always when dealing with optics, packaging accounts for a major share of the final component cost, because of alignment issues and the need to integrate different chips in the same package. In semiconductors, silicon accounts for 80 per cent of the cost, while packaging is 20 per cent. In optics, it is the opposite, as packaging can be as high as 80 per cent of the final cost. So, solutions are currently being developed to reduce cost by increasing assembly throughput at high accuracy. Despite these challenges, we believe silicon photonics will have a bright future. Although it is creating a lot of buzz, the market is still modest, with estimated sales below $100 million in 2016 (chip level) and with very few companies actually shipping products to the open market. However, we estimate the packaged transceivers market to be a multi- billion-dollar industry in 10 years. Silicon photonics is a market of big


promises, especially in data centres and HPC – huge markets that will dwarf all other silicon photonics applications in the near future. Also, silicon photonics can be seen as an enabling technology for other applications such as sensors, life science, quantum computing, telecom, consumer, automotive and so on. For example, future autonomous vehicles will require a high level of security with very low latency in the sensors. Lidar is also an interesting application for silicon photonics. EO


Dr Eric Mounier (mounier@yole.fr) has a PhD in microelectronics from the INPG in Grenoble. He previously worked at CEA LETI R&D lab in Grenoble, France in the marketing department. In 1998 he was a cofounder of Yole Développement, a market research company based in France.


References:


1 Silicon Photonics for Data Centers and Other Applications report, Yole Développement, 2016


small components MASSIVE IMPACT


▪ IR Components ▪ Photon Counters ▪ Photodiodes ▪ Laser Diodes ▪ Laser Modules ▪ Amplifiers ▪ Fibre Optics ▪ Optics


© istock.com/bluejayphoto


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56