For several years, there has been a diversification of applications addressed by silicon photonics. Historically intended for telecom applications, silicon photonic platforms must now address the needs of transceivers for Data Center Interconnect, 5G backhaul / fronthaul but also those of emerging applications such as circuitry for LiDAR or for high performance computing (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing). In order to meet this growing demand and the diversity of needs accompanying all these applications, CEA LETI has developed a new silicon photonics platform based on 300mm SOI wafers. This development is based in part on the experience acquired over more than 15 years on 200mm technology. Switching to 300mm equipment allows access to more advanced and above all, much more stable manufacturing tools, thus making it possible to envisage the production of complex circuits and large-scale integration of photonic components. For the most critical mask levels, the use of an immersion lithography stepper supported by OPC algorithms dedicated to photonics also opens up new perspectives in the possibilities of component design. In this presentation we will describe this new platform by going through its constituent modules and highlighting application versatility. Characterization results of various components fabricated on this platform will also be presented.
|