Putting PICs in Products A Practical Guideline Katarzyna Ławniczuk k.lawniczuk@brightphotonics.eu
Outline Product development considerations Selecting PIC technology Design flow and design tooling considerations 2
Your in house design partner for photonic ICs Founded: 2010 Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands Email: info@brightphotonics.eu 3
Empower products with photonic engineering 2100 nm Bio Sensing Prototyping PIC Design IP-blocks Electronics 1550 nm Control Photonics Telecom Microwave Lidar PRODUCT 1310 nm Materials Mechanics Datacom 100G 700 nm Design from UV to IR Design across technologies Design flow innovation 4 Bio Chemical Sensing Medical OCT 200 nm
Product development considerations 5
Product development competences 6
Product development hence, many topics to address Application considerations: 1. Technology selection 2. MPW vs. custom 3. Time to market 4. Packaging 5. Electronics 6. Scalability 7. NRE cost 8. Lifetime 9. Pricing 10. BoM 11.... 7 Tooling considerations: 1. Design tools 2. Licensing 3. PDK, BBs 4. Libraries 5. Expertise 6....
Challenges in design wavelengths from UV to IR InP SOI SiN LiNbO3 SiON PLC Al3O2 1565 1260 1360 O UV 200nm 700nm bio / chemical / sensing / medical / OCT 8 E 1625 S C L U Wavelength [nm] infrared Visible 400nm 1460 1530 1675 1000nm 1300nm 1550nm datacom 100G telecom microwave lidar 2100nm bio / sensing
Technology selection: waveguide comparison 9
Technology selection: comparing platforms Diffe ren hav t techn e di ffere ologies nt B Bs 10
Hidden parameters lurk under the surface......do not let them sink your PIC - 11 propagation loss radiation loss polarization dependence effective index group index mode profile mode loss group delay shallow vs deep etched waveguide width waveguide radius gap between adjacent waveguide splitting ratio polarization extinction ratiobb cross section number of DF/RF contacts spot size isolation active/passive grating diffraction efficiency RF track width RF track transmission RF track return loss - RF bandwidth sensitivity responsivity dark current 3-dB bandwidth regime input power resistance optical crosstalk electrical RF crosstalk phase tuning voltage Vπ static/dynamic extinction ration threshold current output power tunability coupling coefficient linewidth gain, modal gain saturation power absorption coefficient forward bias current range reverse bias voltage range power dissipation BB dimensions power consumption facet coating
How to select a PIC technology from a functional perspective? and how to/if transfer between technologies? 12
How to select a PIC technology? from a functional perspective Example: 13 Application Functional BB Technological BB Telecom Laser Gain+mirror Material InP / Hybrid
How to select a PIC technology? from a functional perspective Application A. Passives B. Phase control phase modulator true-time delay amplitude modulator ring filters Technological BB couplers AWG-demux 14 Functional BB A generic example WDM add-drop tunable ring filters Material C. Amplification gain or non-linear mixing tunable DBR lasers multiwavelength lasers picosecond pulse laser
Technology transfer Functional design of a RAU From application to PIC AWG multiplexer 3x Rx, 3x Tx: Functions: 1x6 mux 3x Rx, 10 Gb/s 3x Tx, 10 Gb/s Tuneable filter SSC 3x DBR-L + MZI, 10 Gb/s SOA gating 8x SSC to 3 um 15 AWG multiplexer 3x Rx, 3x Tx: 2x DBR-L, 10 Gb/s, 1x DFB-L, 10 Gb/s PIN + DBR filters, 10+ Gb/s PIN + MZI filters, 10+ Gb/s 9x SSC to 10 um
Technology transfer Functional design of a RAU Application specification Functions: Tuneable filter SOA gates vs MZI + DBR Blocks are not one t o one the same At ALL! 16
When you do not consider the whole solution this may happen 17
How to put development steps into a photonic IC design flow? 18
Photonic IC design flow 1. System Specification & Application analysis TVS 19 2. Selection of solution & Technology choice 3. Functional design BB design & simulation 4. Circuit design & circuit simulation LVS 5. Mask layout design: physical design DRC 6. Verification (DRC, LVS) & tape-out 7. Fabrication 8. Testing 9. Packaging Custom MPW Design for test Design for package Verif icatio n are c & review ritica l!
PIC design tooling considerations 20
Photonic IC design is similar to PCB design Photonic circuit t design u o y la r ou Most of y 21 PCB circuit routing n o t n e p be s time will
What to look for in the PIC layout tooling? 1. Automated offsets: technically implemented, standard or extra module 2. Interconnects: type, functionality, standard or extra module 3. Material models: available, implemented, not present 4. Cross section aware interconnections between BBs 5. Manhattan or ribbon based routing 6. Path length measurement on interconnects 7. Simple bounding box placement 8. Hierarchy in design, hierarchy in layout export 9. Scripting language 10. Generation time of the masks (seconds vs. minutes) 11. Generation time of the wafer (seconds vs. hours) 12. High level 1st layout functionality (drag and drop) 13. Handling of IP blocks and BB replacement mechanisms 14. Licensing model and lock in 22
Mask design = scripting You do not want to place manually 100 s of components... Automation... 23
Mask design = scripting Use mature script + environment: + IDE + debugger + profiler + logging + accurate error messages (trace back) + online resources + size of userbase of a script language + extendability of your code YOU WILL N EE 24 D THESE FEA TURES SOO N ER THAN LA TER
Take away 25 Consider the whole solution Technology transfer is not one-to-one copy Verification and review are critical Choose the right design tool
Thank you! Katarzyna Ławniczuk k.lawniczuk@brightphotonics.eu 26